Man picks up wrong suitcase from airport and finds cat

One Fort Worth man will be checking his luggage twice after a recent baggage claim mix-up resulted in more than just the wrong clothes. Rob Carter landed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Friday after a trip from Chicago when he mistakenly grabbed the wrong suitcase. “I went to unpack and saw some of the clothes and saw it wasn’t my suitcase,” he said Tuesday. “I was going to close it and a kitten jumped out and ran under the bed. I screamed like a little girl.” Assuming someone had been too cheap to pay the cost for pet transport, Mr. Carter said he was a little angry. He left the cat under the bed, headed back to the airport and returned the suitcase to American Airlines. He said he reported his encounter with the cat to the airline and said he would take it to the animal shelter. “In the morning, I got close enough to see its collar and the phone number on it. So I called the number and got a hold of the crying wife of the traveller,” Mr. Carter said. 10-month-old Gracie Mae belongs to Kelly and Seth Levy of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. The Levys said they believe the kitten crawled into the suitcase and hid, and Ms. Levy was frantic when she couldn’t find her. “My poor cat, who just had surgery, survives being packed away in the suitcase, going through the Fort Lauderdale baggage process, going through the X-ray, being loaded onto the airplane, flown four hours to Texas and unloaded," Ms. Levy said.