Southwest Airlines lost his luggage carrying the medal he won at a competition for athletes with disabilities. The Oswego man, a former marine and National Guardsman, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and other ailments.
Perkins was on his way home from the Endeavor Games in Oklahoma when he learned his plane was being grounded for weather.
"We were told mid-flight that due to bad weather in Houston we'd be landing in Corpus Christi," Perkins recalled.
The next flight out was not until the next day, and it also was canceled, leaving Perkins stuck overnight with no hotel and no luggage. His PTSD medication and his gold medal for power lifting were both in his bag.
It took nearly two days before Perkins made it home, but his suitcase did not. Seven phone calls to Southwest to report it missing went unanswered, according to Perkins.
"The entire time, I was never given an answer. They never told me where my bags were," Perkins said. "I gave them itineraries, flight numbers, baggage claim numbers, everything."
It is the same frustration voiced by other Southwest customers, as shown by the most recent numbers from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Southwest ranked near the bottom with 35,000 complaints about baggage in April 2016.
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“I would have been satisfied had somebody returned a call saying we understand, we apologize. We are looking into it,” Perkins said.
When that didn’t happen, Perkins changed course and called NBC 5 Responds. When we asked Southwest why Perkins couldn’t get either his luggage or answers about it, the airline found the bag and shipped it to him the next day.
"I'm just happy to have my belongings returned," Perkins told NBC 5 Responds.
The reality is Southwest has 30 days to find a lost bag before it must pay a customer for the value of it, and there’s no compensation for delayed bags. But, a Southwest spokesperson said it’s never the airline’s intent to add to an already tense situation, and did apologize to Perkins for this mix-up.
