On December 8, a passenger parked their car at Buffalo airport short-term parking. she was only expecting it to be there overnight, for her quick trip to New York and back.
The next day she boarded her JetBlue flight home from New York JFK, stowed his backpack in the overhead bin, kept Her purse as her underseat personal item, and then fell asleep before takeoff.
A flight attendant removed the backpack from the overhead bin while trying to manage bin space, asks the cabin whom it belonged to, and — getting no response — assumeed it was left-behind item from the previous flight on that aircraft. So the flight attendant had the backpack taken off the aircraft.
It seems odd to me that a flight attendant would think a backpack in the overhead bin was left from a previous flight – especially long enough after boarding for a passenger on the new flight to fall asleep. However,
- A backpack is a “personal item.” My best guess here is that the flight attendant didn’t actually start off thinking it was from a previous flight, but rather they saw a backpack in the overhead bin and wanted the owner to claim it and put it under the seat in front of them to make room for carry-ons.
- Then, when nobody claimed it, they assumed it was left behind.
It was only when the plane arrived in Buffalo that the woman discovered her backpack was missing. Other passengers told her the crew removed it. She confronted the flight attendant, who told her that her only recourse was the JetBlue baggage office for lost and found.
That evening she filed a lost item report at the Buffalo airport. She received a call saying the bag was reportedly located at JFK and was given a report number. The passenger also spoke to someone at JFK baggage who says they’re pushing for expedited shipping.
The day she heard nothing – just assuming that shipping is in process. The night after that she received an email indicating the bag had not actually been located.
That’s when she started escalating with multiple calls to several locations. She submitted another customer service request. She filed a police report with the Port Authority hoping for review of security footage to determine where the bag went. On the fifth day she still had no whereabouts for the bag.
The backpack contained her car key fob. So the car remained stuck in airport parking, with parking fees mounting. (The bag also contained her Apple Watch and prescription glasses.)
On day six she met a locksmith at the airport to create a replacement fob, but the car battery was dead and wouldn’t jump. She wants JetBlue to cover her costs for this, including extended parking charges she was stuck with.
How To Get The Key Replaced
I don’t think I would have waited four days without my car before getting a new key fob made. It’s not cheap, per se, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be without my car. Here the passenger says they work from home and their partner has a car so they were fine without it.
Here’s how a new electronic key fob gets made:
- Generally you first porove ownership (with registration or title and ID). Then provide the vehicle’s VIN.
- Get the correct fob (manufacturer or compatible aftermarket).
- Program the fob to the car’s immobilizer. A dealer or locksmith can do this.
- If all keys for a vehicle are lost, many vehicles require an immobilizer reset procedure (erasing old keys and registering new ones).
Physical keys that stick into the steering column are easier. It was just mechanical cutting until the 90s when keys added transponder chips (so there’s an immobilizer and programming needed to start the car).
A tradiitonal mechanical key might be $25 – $100. A transponder key should be about $100 – $250. While an electronic fob runs about $250 – $500. Then you’ve got labor, which is at least $100 for a call like this, but getting someone to come to the airport may be more. And an ‘all keys lost’ scenario that requires a reset could also require a tow to a dealer or similar shop.
Is JetBlue Responsible For Costs?
Domestic baggage liability is up to $4,700.
The JetBlue contract of carriage says your carry-on is “your responsibility” and they won’t accept claims. That’s likely their starting point: “claims for lost, forgotten, or stolen carry-on baggage will not be accepted” except where law requires otherwise.
This isn’t a normal carry-on situatuion, but “you placed a carry-on in the bin and it went missing” is how they’d initially deny the claim.
- The airline took custody by physically removing it and offloading it.
- Once a crewmember takes possession and removes it from the aircraft, it’s much less like “lost carry-on” and much more like mishandled baggage.
JetBlue’s Contract of Carriage also says there’s no special, incidental, or consequential damages for checked baggage loss, delay or damage.
However, DOT’s domestic baggage liability rule covers “provable direct or consequential damages” up to the applicable floor/limit. JetBlue appears to be out of conformance, and was even subject to a regulatory enforcement consent order over this.
Next, JetBlue’s contract of carriage says they “will not accept for carriage” certain items, including keys, and that if a passenger checks them “passenger will not be entitled to any reimbursement or compensation” however – again – the passenger checking the keys is not what happened here.
The next argument JetBlue might make is a contractual “duty to mitigate” and limit costs resulting from the loss. JetBlue’s baggage liability language expects passengers to minimize loss. Letting parking charges run for a week is exactly the kind of thing they’ll object to.
The passenger, in turn, should respond that they reasonably expected leaving the car in the lot to be cheaper than having the key fob replaced because JetBlue told them their backpack with keys was found. It’s the bad information from JetBlue that led to higher costs, not the passenger’s failure to mitigate costs.
How To Get JetBlue To Pay
There are too many hooks in their rules to deny a claim even if they’re inapposite to the actual situation that occurred. This isn’t the sort of request that’s routine or properly dealt with by front line customer service agents at an airline.
I’d start with a Department of Transportation online complaint. This isn’t likely to lead to forcing reimbursement by JetBlue, but it will certainly escalate things to get more attention and an empowered response – someone that can walk through the actual facts of the situation and respond accordingly, rather than using the closest template response they can find.
And if that response isn’t satisfactory, I’d file in small claims court.
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