Woman Realizes the Unthinkable Has Happened After Flight Lands—’Cold Sweat’

Traveling can be stressful at the best of times—Have you packed everything? Is your passport in date? Did you definitely book the hotel? So much can go wrong, which Josefine Yackmith discovered when she ran into an unexpected dilemma before she’d even got off the plane.

Ahead of her European vacation in March, Yacksmith, 36, thought she was making things easier by only taking a small handbag and a black carry-on case that went into the overhead bins, rather than checking in a large suitcase. But this proved much riskier than anticipated, as Yacksmith discovered that her bag left the aircraft without her.

It was only the first leg of her journey, as she flew from Ottawa to Toronto, before flying to Dublin with her group of friends. But Yacksmith didn’t notice when the woman next to her mistakenly took her bag as she left the plane, telling Newsweek that she didn’t “notice anything” until she went to retrieve it and “it wasn’t there, it was just another black bag” instead.

She said: “I panicked, you know the feeling when you realize you’ve lost something, and your stomach drops and you break out in a cold sweat?”

After scouring all the overhead compartments, Yacksmith ran to tell the flight attendants about her dilemma, before reporting it to lost baggage. Already, the journey was proving more chaotic than she’d hoped, and she still had a connecting flight to catch four hours later.

“I talked to the people at the gate, and they told me to make a claim for lost baggage. I went to talk to customer service, who made an announcement in the airport and took my number and also said to go to baggage claim. At that point I just sat wondering what I should do, and I decided to meet my friends (who had already arrived at the airport.)

“Just as I was leaving, a guy from one of the desks called out to me. Apparently, the person had realized she’d got my bag and was coming back with my bag. Everything turned out OK, but I was quite flustered,” she continued.

While it all worked out in the end, it wasn’t the start to her vacation that Yacksmith had expected, and she was relieved to meet up with her friends for a glass of wine after.

The Social Media Reaction

What else is there to do in a crowded airport, waiting for a missing bag that may never arrive, except to document the whole experience? Well, that’s exactly what the 36-year-old did, and she posted it all on TikTok (@pieceofthepie.co). She had no idea that the video would go viral though, and it quickly gained over 1.1 million views and more than 21,600 likes.

It was “quite overwhelming” when Yacksmith opened the app a few days later to see that it had generated so much attention. The reactions were quite mixed, and some people provided advice for next time she travels, while others were desperate for an update on the situation, which was “quite strange” to see.

She told Newsweek: “So many people said I should get an AirTag, which I’d thought about doing for checked luggage, but never for carry-on. But I think I’ll do that next time. Others mentioned that they have a bright coloured or patterned suitcase so this very thing doesn’t happen. Apparently, this happens all the time with black bags because they’re so common.

“This sort of thing has never happened to me, and I have traveled a lot in my life. It was just bad luck and bad timing. However, I am now much more alert about watching my carry-on bag when people are taking theirs out.”

With over 900 comments on the viral video already, the lost luggage left plenty of TikTok users on the edge of their seat, while others were bewildered by one part of Yacksmith’s story.

One comment reads: “A carry on for a 10 day trip? That’s epic. Teach me your ways. Seriously, I hope you got your bag back though.”

Another person wrote: “This is why I have AirTags on everything.”

While another TikTok user joked: “It’s the universe telling you it’s time to buy a new wardrobe in Europe.”

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