Intoxicated Baggage Handler Falls Asleep in Plane Cargo Hold and Flies to Chicago

A baggage handler at Kansas City International Airport took a nap in the cargo hold of an aircraft, but when he woke up, he wasn’t in Kanas anymore.

Ross Feinstein, a spokesperson for American Airlines, tells PEOPLE that on Oct. 27, a Piedmont Airlines employee was working an American Airlines flight that departed at 5:52 a.m. from the Kansas City Airport when he “inadvertently fell asleep in the forward cargo hold of a Boeing 737-800 aircraft. The flight subsequently took off with the team member in the cargo hold, which was heated and pressurized.”

“The flight landed safely at Chicago O’Hare (ORD) at 7:09 a.m. CT and taxied to the gate,” Feinstein says in a statement. “The team member was then discovered upon arrival at the gate in Chicago.”

The employee was in the cargo hold for the entire duration of the 62-minute long flight.

According to an airport source, because the flight was only halfway full (with 80 seats booked out of 160), they did not use the forward cargo doors, where the employee was found sleeping, to store luggage.