A Southern California woman whose luggage was lost at Hollywood Burbank Airport after an American Airlines flight said she later found her bag at a homeless camp in Hollywood.
Annie Grace said that after her American Airlines flight to Dallas, Texas, was canceled on May 29, she flew to Burbank on another flight without luggage.
“Five days later, my luggage arrived in Burbank on a Sunday night,” she said. “On Monday morning, I got a call from a carrier company saying they would drop my luggage off at my house.”
Grace had an Apple AirTag in her bag and she could see it wasn't making it home. Using the GPS tracker, she went to the area of Sunset Boulevard and Western Avenue to look for her luggage.
“When I arrived, my bag was slowly moving toward Santa Monica and Western and that’s when I found my stuff, not my suitcase, but particles of my stuff in a homeless man’s shopping cart,” Grace said. “You get to a point where you look around the camp and think, ‘I don’t even want my stuff back.’ I had toiletry bags that were thrown upside down. I had makeup bags. All the makeup was gone.”
She said she doesn't know how her bag ended up at the homeless camp, but she told KTLA's Sandra Mitchell that she's seen plenty of other stolen items in the area.
“That day I saw dozens of suitcases, brand new suitcases, name brand suitcases, scattered across Western and Sunset,” Grace said. “There were rows of suitcases with airline tags everywhere, bicycles, baby strollers.”
She is now demanding answers from American Airlines, filing a claim against the airline and notifying the police department. She has also hired an attorney.
Grace says the area at the Burbank airport where delayed luggage is stored is not secure, and some bags are left on the sidewalk outside the terminal.
“They showed me pictures of how American Airlines sets aside space for people to put their luggage, but I don't put it on homeless people,” she said. “I put it on the airline. American Airlines is responsible for my bag which they practically force you to check at the gate. It's up to them.”
Though she was able to retrieve some personal items from her luggage, she says the items she lost included medical equipment related to her job, valued at $6,000.
According to Grace, so far American Airlines has offered her $1,700 for her lost luggage.