NARRATOR: At Baltimore/Washington
International, Howard has been called by baggage services
to deliver bad news to Nigerian grandma-to-be Cestina Obiora.
HOWARD: The fish can't go because it's
not packed properly.
Call this number for me, call them for me.
SHARMILA: I could try to call them.
NARRATOR: Cestina is transporting a Nigerian
delicacy to her pregnant daughter,
but her precious cargo is against the rules.
Cestina's lack of English isn't helping,
so Sharmila phones a family member to translate.
Hel-Hello.
Who am I speaking, who is this?
Who is this, your son?
Yes.
Hi.
This is Sharmila from Southwest Airlines.
You just dropped, you just dropped a passenger off here.
She has fish in her bags.
She has fish in her bags, and you
can't have fish in your bags.
OK, hold on.
He's yelling at me.
Hello?
Right here, honey.
Hello?
[non english speech] Hello?
Hello?
OK, we have to go to baggage service.
NARRATOR: The fate of Cestina's fish
will be decided downstairs.
In Baltimore, Cestina's Nigerian fish are causing a commotion
in baggage services.
Can you smell it?
She wants to open the bag.
CESTINA OBIORA: This is fine for me, now.
Do you have a key for it?
(ON PHONE): Yeah, they don't call until
they actually get close--
CESTINA OBIORA: [inaudible]
SHARMILA: Right here, honey.
Put, put the fish in here, OK?
That's gone moldy, there.
See? You see that?
SHARMILA: You see this?
The bug?
See that?
CESTINA OBIORA: Sorry, sorry.
The bug.
My fish--
NARRATOR: Cestina is still unaware her infested smoked
catfish won't be allowed on the plane.
And Nhi has to phone the family, once again.
Hi, man.
This is Nhi from Southwest Airlines again.
OK, we've gone through the first bag with the lady
and we've noticed that there are maggots in some of the fish.
We've put that aside in the bag and I
think I'm going to have a problem explaining
to her that fish would not go.
What is wrong?
It's up to him, OK.
If he says it can't go, then it can't go.
NARRATOR: Back at BWI and it's time
to check Cestina's second bag.
Is it going to be more bad news for the Nigerian grandma-to-be?
CESTINA OBIORA: What them do this?
Ma'am, just one moment please.
Just [inaudible]
Put that here now.
SHARMILA: No, we can't take it. - Let's wait.
Let's go through this and then we'll take care of this.
Hey
The fish got bugs, little-
No bugs, no bugs
Look, look, another maggot.
Look at that, look at that.
SHARMILA: Look, see all this?
CESTINA OBIORA: [whines]
SHARMILA: [whines]
I beg you, all of them.
Please
It's got to get bagged up.
I beg you, now.
I'm beg you, now.
NARRATOR: It looks like the fish will be staying behind,
but the bugs are making a run for it.
The time it took, obviously, she's missed her flight now.
But we've confirmed that for the next slide going out.
But, so we spoke to her family members over in Raleigh-Durham.
I don't think she's too pleased with the fact
that her fish is not going.
That's an anticlimax to her travel
but, unfortunately we can't have them go.
NARRATOR: Cestina will have to see her grandchild
without her precious fish.
At Baltimore Washington International,
TJ inspects a bag containing some tiny stowaways.
Look at them all.
Look at this.
EMPLOYEE: That's not going out--
Nah, TSA just sent it over.
Somebody just checked it upstairs.
All kinds of dried food and a whole ant colony, apparently.
Oh, Oh, man.
Dang.
Yeah, this ain't going.
Can't go.
The whole bag's not going to be able to go
if there's ants in it.
Put the whole bag in this bag.
There's like hundreds of them in there.
Here.
Spray some Lysol.
TJ: Stand outside of the gate area, to go and get
the passengers to come down and get the bag,
because, obviously the bag can't go.
We don't get a hold of them, they'll
go to Chicago and that bag, I guess, we'll
just stay right here with us.
NARRATOR: Back at BWI, TJ's now at the gates
in search of the owner of the ant-infested bag.
Still haven't gotten them, so, we're going to go
see if we can track them down.
I'm going to make an announcement in the bar,
see if they might be hanging out in there.
Any Merts in here?
BARTENDER: Anybody named Mert in this bar?
What are you trying to say?
My mouth is bigger than yours?
Pretty much, yeah.
No luck there.
We've got the boarding pass deleted it's on, too.
Pretty much when they try to board the plane,
it's going to pop up that they don't have a boarding pass.
At that point, we pretty much intercept them at the gate
there and find out what they want to do
with the contents of the bag.
Because as of right now, that bag is
definitely not going anywhere.
NARRATOR: At BWI, TJ's search continues for the owner
of the ant-infested bag.
First name is Mert, M-E-R-T. Spell the last name, too.
Ustununal, U-S-T-U-N-U-N-A-L.
NARRATOR: And out steps Mert.
12 years old and accompanied by his uncle.
Mert, you checked in a bag downstairs?
Yeah.
WOMAN: Yeah, we're getting ready to call.
NARRATOR: That bag is filled with ants.
It can't go on the plane.
Uh-oh.
TJ: They will not go on the plane.
Something has to be done with that bag before--
OK.
TJ: --you can go.
--take it with me?
TJ: You can take it with you, yeah, that's fine.
And, we'll go ahead and--
OK.
Mert's Turkish.
And his grandmother came from Turkey two or three days ago.
He was visiting and he's going back to Chicago.
So she brought, from Turkey, homemade jelly,
and nuts, and a lot of food for him
to take back to his parents.
Obviously it had ants in it.
So if you want to go on down, you're all set.
All right.
See you later.
Have a good trip.
Nice to see you.
You too.
Bye.
NARRATOR: Mert boards, minus his grandmother's Turkish delights.
NARRATOR 2: In LA, Susie is dealing with a passenger whose
bag has been denied boarding.
Seems he's transporting something rather unusual.
Sir, it has cockroaches in it.
We're not going to store the bag.
Let's see if it's got cockroaches.
SUSIE: We'll take it outside and see it,
but I can't have cockroaches running around in here.
I understand that!
When the TSA was doing their security check,
a whole bunch of cockroaches came out of the bag.
And we can't transport the bag like that.
Step away now.
Where in the hell is the cockroach?
They say there's cockroaches in this bag.
We got cockroaches in this airport.
But, I don't understand this.
You can't take it like that?
You can't check it.
So he wants to shake--
You mean you got to shake all these clothes out?
MAN: Yes. Exactly.
We need to make sure that there are no cockroaches
in there because now you're going to be
in the cabin of our aircraft.
Cockroaches.
They probably came from the same house as I did.
I need to be completely sure that we
don't have any cockroaches in here for us to send this bag.
JAMES LANEY: Do you see any?
Sir, they're on your leg.
Sir, you have them on your leg.
They're on your leg.
Right there.
They're coming out of the, underneath the wheels,
they're on his pants.
MAN: Look.
Look what happened.
We're just going--
we're going to have to dispose of the bag.
That bag cost me $30-something.
I ain't gonna throw that away.
I don't think this bag is going to go.
But I don't think he wants to part with the bag.
NARRATOR 2: If Susie can't persuade James Laney to part
with his bag, he won't be going anywhere.
In LA, James is still reluctant to part with his bag,
so Mike is called in to persuade him otherwise.
MIKE: You check any other bags, or is
this the only bag you checked?
No, I checked my other bags in [inaudible]
Let's hope they're not in the other bags.
This came from storage.
MIKE: This came from the storage?
This bag did, yeah.
MIKE: So did the other bags come from storage?
No.
MIKE: Then that's probably what the problem is.
They live in storage and they breed.
Don't throw the bag down anymore, sir.
JAMES LANEY: Why?
MIKE: Because you're not going to get them all out,
and you're not going to be able to take this bag.
You know what I mean?
You just need to chalk this up and let's throw this bag away.
Just leave this alone and we'll have somebody pick that up.
Let it go.
Let's put it next to the trash can.
Just say goodbye.
What don't you step over here?
NARRATOR 2: With Mike's gentle persuasion,
James' clothes are packed away, minus the cockroaches.
MIKE: A flick of the wrist.
Thank you.
All right young man, let's get ahead.
We'll go inside to get this tagged
and we'll get you on your way, all right?
NARRATOR 2: 3A isn't the only gate posing a problem.
A swarm of potentially dangerous bees
has formed a hive right on the jetway at gate 13.
Usually they're on the belt loaders or the equipment
down here.
It's the first time I've ever seen them up in that area.
Don't go to 13, there's bees.
I know.
The bees.
How do they know there's--
They used to be rebels.
Maybe they're overreacting.
Once again.
Oh my god.
It's the whole hive.
That's what I just said.
That is wild.
So they have to find the queen bee in that whole pile
up there, and then the rest of them will go.
We won't be able to use this gate at all, which will make
a little bit of complications for our crew downstairs
because they'll have to do gate changes and hold out.
So we're missing one gate for a while
till they fumigate our friendly bees.
NARRATOR 2: Los Angeles International Airport.
Gate 13.
And it's bee man, Clayton Renwick, to the rescue.
[music playing]
I wonder what they're thinking right now.
I wonder--
I wonder if they know--
We've got the queen in there.
We've got the queen, and so, the rest will eventually
just kind of disappear.
NARRATOR 2: The bees may be gone,
but they're not forgotten.
So we have to close the gate for the rest of the day?
I would recommend that, yes.
We can't use the gates for the rest of the night.
We're going to have some bees around.
MAN (ON WALKIE-TALKIE): Uh-oh.
[music playing]