Baggage

With a bag slung over his shoulder and a fanny-pack around his waist, Manuel Crew prowls the corridors of Baltimore-Washington International Airport almost daily, blending in with bustling travelers, looking for unattended bags and people-watching.Occasionally, he will stop someone like the man in the suit absent-mindedly peering out the window, his bag perched on a bench 20 feet away."Is that your bag?" Crew asks, pulling out police identification from his back pocket. "You might want to keep it by your side."

Federal prosecutors have arrested the president of a freight forwarding company in Miami and accused him of trying to ship as passenger baggage 500 pounds of a corrosive pesticide on a passenger jet, with the warning labels covered over with black plastic.The shipment was discovered when one of the 10 50-pound bags leaked before the plane -- an American Airlines flight to Quito, Ecuador -- left the gate.Prosecutors said the fumes sickened five passengers, but a spokeswoman for American said that no passengers had been made ill. She said, though, that two baggage handlers were taken to the hospital as a precaution.

For 20 years, Rosy has lugged guests' baggage down the hall, up the elevator and into the hotel rooms at the Annapolis Marriott -- with one hand and a hook.Bellman Sterling Roosevelt lost his left hand in 1964 rescuing a woman trapped in a car under a live power wire. Hecarries scars from the voltage he received pulling the woman to safety, skin grafts from his hip onto his right hand and a ring-shaped scar from burns on his head.To the dozens of hotel employees and guests, however, Roosevelt is far more than a handicapped worker.

Attention, air travelers who hog overhead luggage space: This could be the winter of your discontent.In its efforts to compete with Southwest Airlines and its no-frills service, the Shuttle by United service has been streamlining boarding procedures and strictly limiting the size and amount of baggage that travelers can carry aboard. USAir did the same about a year ago. Continental Airlines, though its shuttle service is focused in the eastern United States, may tighten enforcement on non-shuttle service as well.

LONDON -- For the second successive day, British Airways canceled dozens of flights at Heathrow's glittery new Terminal Five as its staff struggled with state-of-the-art technology supposed to hasten check-in procedures and make flying a pleasure. The hitches since the terminal opened to paying passengers Thursday were "definitely not British Airways' finest hour," the airline's chief executive, Willie Walsh, told reporters as he offered a personal, public apology for disrupting the travel plans of thousands of people.

It was my first two-way airline baggage mishap.On a recent trip, Northwest Airlines misplaced my luggage on the flight out and on the return flight as well.At departure, the checked bags were improperly tagged by the skycap. It took a day to find them in San Francisco, rather than in my destination city of Seattle. On the way back, the bags didn't make the connection between Northwest flights in Detroit, although I did. A day later, the bags were delivered to my home.My inconvenience, of course, is small potatoes compared to the experience of Felice Lippert, whose bag containing more than $400,000 worth of jewelry was lost at a Palm Beach International Airport security checkpoint in 1986.

Fire service workers to greet families for memorial weekend Fire service personnel from across the country, including the BWI Fire and Rescue Department and members of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, will serve as honor guards and greet the families of fallen firefighters arriving at Baltimore-Washington International Airport next weekend, beginning Friday. The families will come through BWI to attend private and public ceremonies during the National Firefighters Memorial Weekend, staged annually on the campus of the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg.

Along with anxiety and long lines that post-Sept. 11 security measures have caused for air travelers has come a somewhat unexpected side effect: fewer complaints of lost, damaged and stolen luggage. The latest federal government numbers show a lower incidence of mishandled baggage each year since the terrorist attacks in 2001. In general, there are three or four complaints for every 1,000 passengers, down from four or five complaints - which could mean a couple of thousand fewer losses a day nationwide.

RECENTLY, when I arrived at the airport in Mexico City, it immediately was clear to me that it was designed for travelers like me. I don't speak Spanish, but the various multilingual signs helped me get through the congested corridors to retrieve my baggage, conduct business with customs and quickly get transportation to my hotel.Upon my return to Baltimore, a different situation greeted me at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Upon disembarking, I saw a sign directing passengers to the baggage claim area.

Security at BWI to be discussed during exhibition Speakers from Baltimore-Washington International Airport's information technology department will address the sixth annual E-Gov 2003 Conference and Exposition, scheduled for Wednesday at the Washington Convention Center. The topic will be security-related technology in use at BWI and around the world, including vehicle-screening systems and electronic baggage screening. AACC president to speak at business breakfast BWI Business Partnership will hold a Spirit of Success breakfast meeting at 7:45 a.m. June 18 at the Historical Electronics Museum, 1745 W. Nursery Road.