Just a week after it was forced to cancel its domestic flights due to a “temporary third-party network system outage,” Sun Country Airlines is now dealing with serious baggage delays at Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport (MSP).
On Sunday morning, reports emerged on social media that passengers were stuck at the airport waiting for their luggage, with one claiming they’d had to wait 13 hours “in the airport/on the plane for a 3 hr flight”:
Another reported that people were “sleeping at the baggage claim” as they waited for their luggage:
In an email to Bring Me The News, Sun Country said that staffing issues played a role in the carousel delays:
“Severe weather and understaffing due to COVID sick calls challenged our team at MSP yesterday. We apologize to our guests for any delays they experienced, but appreciate their patience as our team worked through the challenges to service guests safely.
The airline also claimed that only one flight – from St. Thomas – was “significantly delayed” because of the situation — as the aircraft had been “taken to a remote parking pad for service by the maintenance control team prior to the passenger bags being offloaded,” leaving Sun Country’s ground crews “unable to access the aircraft.”
However, one of the passengers who tweeted above mentioned that they were on Sun Country flight 746 – from Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic – and were delayed for more than 90 minutes upon getting to MSP.
Sun Country later clarified that the only flight where the baggage delayed stretched into Sunday was the flight from St. Thomas.
The company also said that passengers weren’t all told to come back on Sunday, but rather were given the choice.
“I just spoke with our Operations Team and we are unfamiliar with any communication directing passengers to go home, rather, they had the option to go home and come back this morning, wait for their luggage to arrive, or fill out a claim form and have it delivered, whichever option served them best at that hour of the evening,” a spokesman said.