An American Airlines passenger needed to get travel for work, and work involved using an empty bucket. He had to be at work before stores opened the next morning. And that meant he’d have to bring the bucket with him on his flight. So he brought it along as checked luggage. The bucket made it!
Yes. I’m aware how ridiculous this is. Trust me, if I didn’t have to go through the process of checking an empty bucket, I wouldn’t.
My job required the use of a bucket. My plane was arriving at 11PM, after all the bucket stores closed. My job started at 5AM, before the bucket stores opened. So I had to bring my own.
Everyone involved got a good laugh about it (as far as I know).
The passenger receives free checked bags though doesn’t share if that is because of their AAdvantage status or because they’re a co-brand credit card customer.
Loose items are hardly new to checked baggage, and not losing them isn’t new either. Five years ago a man famously checked a beer can as a standalone bag and it made it all the way to baggage claim. American didn’t quite deliver a single bottle of deoderant – it most likely got lost in the airport baggage system.
Slow News Day ?
Reminds me of the time someone mailed 6000 cinderblocks and 4600 bags of cement to an address in Alaska, one at a time, because it was cheaper than shipping them in via air cargo. That was 1988.
When Parcel Post was first introduced in 1913, a few people actually mailed their children, as it was cheaper than a child’s rail ticket. That’s why there are still postal regulations against mailing children.
I can sleep peacefully tonight knowing his faithful bucket made it 🙂
Always good to hear about a story with a happy ending 😉
And nobody kicked the bucket??
My god, how sad. I have no words. This guy really shows he needs the work.
That bucket could be used as a weapon on the plane. Just like the frozen leg of lamb was.
I checked a front tire from a ChampCar Atlantic race car from Cleveland to Houston in 2006 on United. The check-in desk agent slapped the tag on the sidewall. It arrived just fine — first thing off the plane out of the hold.
I once checked a beach chair from big island hawaii to columbus ohio. Arrived unharmed.
Did AA meet the aircraft on the ramp with employees waving 5 gallon buckets and dancing with them….while a convenient camera crew films the entire completely-not-staged-publicity-stunt?
Riveting, simply riveting.
I have trouble envisioning a place that AA flies to that would not have a Walmart in sufficient proximity to avert the need for this, but whatever works.
Aaand of course immediately remembered that post-COVID Walmarts are no longer 24/7…sigh.
Is the bucket called Hyacinth?
Hehe
@Jr, It’s Bouquet – B U C K E T !!!
He had to bring it with him. It was a left-handed metric bucket. No way to guarantee that his destination city would have those available.
I guess if the checked baggage is free, though you’re still paying with your time waiting for it (and the risk it doesn’t arrive). The much more convenient and obvious thing to do is order a bucket on Amazon and have it delivered to your attention at your hotel the day/day before you check in. I’ve done this (though never with a bucket) many times.
(I’m also very curious as to what job is sufficiently high-paying to require air travel but also requires the employee/worker to supply his own cheap plastic bucket.)
And where are you supposed to dissolve the body if the bucket doesn’t show?
(You wanted to know what paid so well that required a bucket.)
Saw a turkey with its legs tied together checked in Peru.