TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) -- Veronica Presley wants her luggage and she intends to get it. To say she's lost her patience with Silver Airways is a huge understatement.
Presley's luggage has been lost three times. She's also tired of plane delays.
"I've called here twice. Nobody to talk to. I've called their corporate office. It took me about four times to even get a person on the phone and as soon as I did, she said she will see what she could do and I still haven't heard from anyone-no luggage," Presley said.
Tupelo Regional Airport Executive Director Josh Abramson is all too aware of complaints about Silver Airways.
"When they talk about performance and delays it's happening. It's for real and the word of mouth discussions are for real," Abramson said.
The word appears to be spreading.
Boardings have dropped significantly at all four airports Silver Airways services in Mississippi.
In Tupelo, boardings dropped 53 percent from the previous year for the month of November.
Hattiesburg boardings dropped 64 percent.
Cancellations are rampant. There were 16 flight cancellations for the month of December and that's just in Tupelo.
Figures show more than 40 departure delays and 41 arrival delays for December.
"What we have is an issue of really just fine-tuning a system that's very sensitive and so any little hiccup can just exponentially create the delays," Abramson added.
Abramson says Silver Airways has doubled in size practically overnight-all this at a time when they must navigate a complex market with the busiest airports in the world-Atlanta.
"The performance has been poor with the airline. What we are asking is give us the opportunity to work with the airline to make this happen," Abramson said.
Not everyone has had a bad experience.
"It's been great. I've flown it twice now and I got to the airport in Atlanta just in time and got right on and got here in perfect time, so I've had no problems with it," passenger Shelly Wishard said.
"It was the smallest airplane I've ever been on, but I loved it. It was fine," passenger James Harris said.
Harris says he didn't have to drive an hour and a half from Memphis to get into Tupelo for business.
