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ORLANDO, Fla. – Hundreds of passengers arriving on three Virgin Atlantic flights from the United Kingdom waited more than four hours for their luggage at Orlando International Airport after weather-related disruptions delayed baggage handling, airport and airline officials said.<\/p>\n
Passengers said they were unable to leave the customs area because international travelers must clear U.S. Customs and Border Protection with their checked baggage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Some travelers alleged they were threatened with arrest during the delay, though airport officials denied that any airport employees or Orlando police officers made such threats.<\/p>\n
CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX LOCAL APP<\/a><\/p>\n Virgin Atlantic apologized for the disruption, attributing the delays to adverse weather that affected ground handling operations. The airline said all passengers were reunited with their luggage before leaving the airport.<\/p>\n Airport officials said a combination of severe weather and staffing levels among airline ground-handling crews contributed to the delays. They added that baggage handling is the responsibility of airlines and their contracted ground-service providers and said they are working with airline partners to determine how similar delays can be prevented.<\/p>\n SIGN-UP FOR FOX 35’S BREAKING NEWS, DAILY NEWS NEWSLETTERS<\/a><\/p>\n An attorney not involved in the incident said international travelers generally cannot leave the customs area without their baggage unless airlines issue documentation identifying the luggage as delayed or mishandled, allowing passengers to complete customs processing before retrieving their bags later.<\/p>\n U.S. Customs and Border Protection had not publicly commented on the incident.<\/p>\n The Source: This story was written based on information shared by Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Atlantic passengers.<\/p>\n Orange County News<\/a>Orlando International Airport (MCO)<\/a>Orlando News<\/a>Travel<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. – Hundreds of passengers arriving on three Virgin Atlantic flights from the United Kingdom waited more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[47,555,115,1335,139,11583,141,140,107,628],"class_list":["post-324270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-fl","tag-lifestyle","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-airport","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-travel","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}