Passenger Finds Her Luggage Missing From Hollywood Homeless Encampment

A woman is demanding answers from American Airlines after she says she was able to find her missing luggage at a Hollywood homeless encampment.

Aunny Grace said her travel nightmare began at the Dallas airport on May 29 when her flight was delayed.

“American Airlines left thousands of people stranded at the airport overnight for days,” Grace said.

She then spent the night at the Dallas airport waiting to board her flight home at Hollywood Burbank Airport, and was told her luggage would be delayed.

However, she later discovered her luggage at a homeless encampment near the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Western Avenue, she said.

Grace was able to find her luggage thanks to an Apple AirTag in her suitcase, but now she wants to know how it got there.

“She went to Denver, and then Denver came back to Dallas, and then finally, five days later, she came back to Burbank,” Grace told NBC4, adding that after five days she was delivered the wrong suitcase.

She said she was initially told her luggage was fine and delivered to her home in Hollywood, but her AirTag told a different story.

“When the carrier called me, he told me he was at my house. I looked and saw my AirTag flickering really slowly down Western Avenue, like there was no direction, really,” Grace said. “I knew intuitively something was wrong. Something was wrong.

“Between midnight and 7 a.m., my bag ended up at Homeless Town Hollywood,” she added.

Grace then decided to go to the location of her AirTag where she found her luggage. But his nightmare was not yet over.

When she found her suitcase, she discovered that it had been opened and everything had been taken out.

“I’m just crying, grabbing my stuff,” she said. “I had jewelry, medicine, bags that I had bought in Bali, Peru. My toiletry bag was turned inside out, completely empty. Makeup bag, empty. This homeless guy just went through my stuff.

Grace was able to get her things back after she and a friend paid the homeless man, she told NBC4. She has now filed a police report and has also contacted American Airlines, which she says told her it would refund up to $1,700 for her items, far below what she estimates are worth more than $6 300 dollars.

As she searched for her items, she noticed other bags as well.

“I’ve seen suitcases with American Airlines tags on them,” Grace said.

She said the homeless man told her he bought his suitcase on the street.

“I want to know: How did my suitcase get from the Burbank airport to a homeless encampment in Hollywood, on the corner of Western and Sunset?” Grace said.

She went on to explain that at the airport, some bags are out in the open, making it easy for anyone to pick them up.

“The bags that are late, they take them out of the carousel queue and bring them to the office. So you have the bags in the office, and then you have the rest right outside,” she told NBC4.

Following the incident, American Airlines released a statement Tuesday that said: “We work to ensure that our customers' checked bags and other items arrive at their destination on time and in their original condition. We are investigating what happened here, and in the meantime, a member of our team is in contact with the customer to apologize and resolve the issue,” KABC reported.

But Grace says she's still not satisfied with the airline's response.

“This will continue until someone takes responsibility. This needs to be the responsibility of the airline,” Grace said.

The independent has contacted American Airlines for comment.