After Delta Flight, Woman Finds Her Panties Were Stolen From Checked Luggage

Sometimes checked bags are lost. Sometimes they’re stolen from baggage claim, which is why Apple AirTags have become so popular. But sometimes items from your luggage go missing between the time you check it in with the airline and the time is arrives at the other end of your trip.

When you check a bag with an airline, the airline is responsible for the bag even though they aren’t the only one that touches it. You may have seen the slips that TSA sometimes sticks into bags saying that they’ve opened and inspected it.

One woman shared her story of flying Delta from New York JFK to Los Angeles, only to discover that her bag had been opened and one of her packing cubes removed. The only thing taken was the packing cube with her panties. Ewwww.

It’s difficult to pinpoint who is to blame, which is why when there is more than one airline on your itinerary, it’s the last airline before your destination that is responsible for it even if it was lost or damaged along the way by a different airline.

Surely there were more valuable items in this woman’s luggage than underwear, but there are subcommunities all over the internet where they probably do command a premium. The underwear will probably be harder to identify than when a TSA employee stole a CNN camera and forgot to remove the cable network’s stickers before selling it on eBay.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. It must be articles such as these that made Gary “one of the “World’s Top Travel Experts” by Conde’ Nast Traveler (2010-Present)”…….Or it tells us something about the caliber of Conde Nast’s rating system.

  2. I once had underwear stolen from my home by security personnel who seemingly wanted a gift for their signifiacna others. (not that my underwear was that exotic, but rather that they were so underpaid this was the only way to get gifts)

  3. I had cancer a few years ago, and was flying to the Cleveland Clinic (from my home in the Deep South) for ongoing treatment. It is essential to never walk around barefoot during chemo because a person’s immune system is compromised and it is easy to pick up bacteria or a virus through the feet that could be quite dangerous with a compromised immune system.

    When I arrived at my hotel, my checked bag was in the same condition as this woman’s — everything upside down, which shocked me because I am an old road warrior who packs neatly and strategically. As I unpacked, I realized my bedroom slippers were missing. At first, I could not believe it. They were nothing special. Just nice, comfy terry cloth with a nonslip sole. There were certainly much more valuable items in my suitcase. But the slippers were the only thing that was stolen. I still cannot understand why someone would steal my (obviously not new) slippers. Because of my location, it was a complex task to replace them with something suitable and it was upsetting because I had to be so careful to not walk on the room’s floor. Thieves probably never think about the harm they could cause by taking some little something out of a passenger’s luggage.

    I wish there was far better security and monitoring of TSA workers so these incidents would be caught and stopped. They happen far too frequently.

  4. And the thief probably isn’t happy–AFIAK the market is for **used** clothing items and it sounds like these would have already been washed.

  5. A similar thing happened to my wife on a Delta flight from BWI to MSP a few months ago. A mesh bag containing several pairs of used panties was stolen from her checked bag. So gross to think about. She puts them all in her carry-on now.

  6. @DFWSteve:
    > Sniffing? Hmmmm. Ya sure Joe Biden isn’t moonlighting as a Delta baggage handler?

    What’s with the stupid political allegations? Which president is still facing sexual assault allegations?

  7. @Loren

    Political allegations? Have you been living under a rock? There are tons of videos Biden sniffing teens/kids hair and planting a kiss on their cheeks.

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