Delta Air Lines paid woman $11,000 not to fly, other passengers' bags go without them

Five days after the storms that wreaked havoc on Delta's operations leading to thousands of cancellations, only four Delta flights were canceled Monday, according to aviation website Flightaware.com.

Amanda Kowalesky was supposed to be in West Palm, but with day one of her three-day weekend shot at the airport, she stayed home in Atlanta.

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She's now lugging fears about a dream trip this summer.

“If there's a storm, am I not going to get to Ireland in time?” Kowalesky said. “We're going to see U2 play in Dublin, that's a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

Delta flew her bag to Florida from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

“I found baggage left in the residue of the airline's spring break meltdown," Kowalesky said.

After a Sunday cancellation, Evelyn Rubin flew in Monday morning from Newark, New Jersey. Delta apparently didn't know her bag made it to Arkansas without her.

Delta says it will hand-deliver bags that don't catch up to their owners.

Suzanna Wasserman said she lost a bag after missing her weekend cruise out of Miami.

“We can't get anyone on the phone,” Wasserman said of reaching the airline.

Delta says it's working on compensation. Yahoo Travel Editor Laura Begley Bloom said she gave up her family's seats on three consecutive days. Delta paid a total of nearly $11,000.  She wrote about the experience on Forbes.com.

“I wanted to get to Florida to have my vacation, but the money kept getting better,” Bloom said. “We walked away with a pretty hefty chunk of change from Delta Air Lines.”

Still, Bloom conceded in her post that the money would not solve every traveler's problem.

“Over the course of two days, (my family) heard horror stories about families with little kids sleeping at the airport and people missing weddings and funerals,” she wrote. “No gift card will compensate for life interruptions like that.”

Cox Media Group