Home>News Center>World
         
 

U.S. to pay fliers $1.5 million for pilfered items
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-10 15:04

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration plans next week to say it will pay more than $1.5 million to about 15,000 airline passengers who claimed items in their checked baggage were stolen or damaged in the last 18 months, the New York Times said on Friday.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, when airport security was tightened, checked baggage has been handled by airline employees and federal inspectors. The latter often conduct their work in secluded, windowless rooms at airports.

The extra layer of security, the newspaper said, has left some aggrieved fliers in a no-man's land where neither the government nor the airlines will compensate them for lost or damaged items ranging from cameras to laptop computers to prescription drugs to silk underwear.

Mark Hatfield, a spokesman for the security agency, told the newspaper: "Passengers have been caught in the middle long enough, and the TSA decided it's time to settle," despite long and so far fruitless negotiations with airlines on a long-term pact governing claims processing and the sharing of costs.

Agency officials said the TSA had finished processing 18,000 of a total of 26,000 claims. Hatfield said the government would pay the entire claim in 38 percent of the cases it has reviewed, half the claim in 33 percent, less than half the claim in 12 percent, and none of the claim in 17 percent. The average payment will be about $110, he said.



 
  Today's Top News     Top World News
 

China's stocks plunge to five-year low

 

   
 

Southwest flood death toll grows to 177

 

   
 

HK condemns `distorted' report

 

   
 

Bin Laden's deputy: US on brink of defeat

 

   
 

JI 'claims Jakarta car bombing'

 

   
 

Shanghai readies for Rockets-Kings game

 

   
  U.S. to pay fliers $1.5 million for pilfered items
   
  Gore calls Cheney remarks 'sleazy'
   
  JI 'claims Jakarta car bombing'
   
  Clinton takes short walks in hospital
   
  Hurricane Ivan nears Jamaica, kills 23
   
  Group: 'Ghost Detainees' likely in Iraq
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Related Stories  
   
Reactions mixed to US security measures
   
US airports now fingerprint foreigners
   
Airport shutdown likely during Olympic ceremonies
  News Talk  
  Are the Republicans exploiting the memory of 9/11?  
Advertisement