Airport Employee Misplaced a Pair of Scissors and Caused Japan's 2nd Busiest Airport to Shut Down for Over 2 Hours, Resulting in 36 Flight Cancellations and 200+ Delays

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CNBC - In an unexpected twist worthy of a thriller, Japan's New Chitose Airport was thrown into chaos on Saturday when a pair of scissors went missing. The incident led to the cancellation of 36 flights and delays for over 200 others, reported BBC.

The airport, the second-busiest in Japan, is located in Chitose on the northern island of Hokkaido. It is known for its strict security and operational protocols. Retail outlets within the airport are required to store scissors in designated lockers for security reasons. Staff access the scissors when needed and are expected to return them immediately after use.

On Saturday, however, a retail outlet at the airport reported that a pair of scissors could not be located. The missing scissors prompted a search that led to a suspension of security checks for incoming passengers for approximately two hours. This lapse in security operations caused a severe backlog, with queues stretching for hours and passengers being denied entry.

I've always thought when you take into account how much you're paid (which can't be a ton), and how much annoying bullshit you have to deal with, I can't think of many places I'd rather work less than at a store/restaurant inside an airport. Obviously, some airports would be worse than others. But every day having to deal with airport parking and going through TSA. Then once you're at work, never knowing if the customer you're dealing with has been stuck in the terminal for the last 16 hours dealing with flight delay bullshit and is one wrong look away from losing his god damn mind and leaping over the counter to ring your neck. I enjoy being at an airport when everything goes smoothly. But there's just too many variables and things that can go wrong to have be there on a daily basis.

A simple pair of lost scissors for example. I'd never even thought of that. You could be a model employee who's worked at the airport for years. Then one little slip where you forget to return the scissors to their designated locker, and suddenly you've ruined the weekend for thousands and thousands of people. I can't imagine being the man or woman responsible for this. There's a zero percent chance I'm returning to work after that one. Luckily for them, their identity seems to have been successfully kept a secret. I can't even find the name of the store. But having to sit there and watch the 2nd busiest airport in all of Japan come to a screeching halt because you misplaced an office supply. What a nightmare. 

I don't speak Japanese so that video and picture don't mean much to me. But I'm sure it's all bad news for travelers.

It wasn't just a regular weekend either. Last weekend was Japan's Obon Festival. Huge travel weekend. Apparently half the country had plans to travel back to their hometowns to honor their ancestors. 

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T's & P's to the people who missed out on that due to a pair of scissors. On top of that, there was a music festival that had to cancel a whole bunch of acts because the artist's travel plans were fucked by the scissors

And I'm not sure if this makes things better or worse. I guess it's definitely better all things considered. But after an extensive search of the airport, guess where the scissors turned up?

The missing scissors were eventually found in the same shop from which they had disappeared. Fortunately, they weren’t stolen, but verifying their recovery added more delay.

They were in the store the whole time. I'm sure the person who misplaced them felt relief when they resurfaced in their store, as opposed to in the neck of a pilot somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. But to cause a borderline international incident, when if you had simply retraced your steps correctly you would have found the damn scissors right where you left them. Then the airport has to go through a whole investigation afterwards to make sure those are in fact the right scissors, or that the scissors weren't actually taken for malicious reasons then returned once they realized the nefarious plan they had in place wasn't going to work out. I would never get over causing that. It might be seppuku time for me. At bare minimum, for the rest of my life, every week or so the incident would pop into my head while I'm in the shower and I'd grunt loudly through my teeth to try and push the memory out of my brain. My wife would yell, "You ok in there, honey?" and I'd have to say, "Yes dear, I'm fine. Just thought about the time I ruined Obon Festival for the entire country of Japan again."

What I wonder is how often things like scissors are misplaced in an airport, but they aren't reported. When this incident occurred, do you think the rest of the airport employees were like, "Come on guys.. just find the fucking scissors on your own… you didn't need to make this a whole thing." 

Or are airport employees well-trained enough that they all would have done the same? I'd like to think they'd all do the same. But in my experience people will go to great lengths to avoid even the slightest bit of conflict. I mean, they must have looked for the scissors at least a little bit before reporting them missing, right? I'm sure they did. But how the hell could they not find them sooner if they were in the same damn shop they disappeared from. It makes you wonder if someone just had them in their pocket the whole time, and when they realized what they had done ditched them on a counter for someone else to stumble upon. 

I can only imagine if this happened in America. If someone at the Dunkin' Donuts in Boston Logan loses a knife and the entire airport comes to a screeching halt, a TSA agent is getting assaulted. Some poor United Airlines' gate attendant who has nothing to do with the situation is getting a laptop across the face. All people flying Spirit would come together for one big royal rumble. Then once the scissors are found, they're gonna find that employee, and he's gonna end up getting taken out of there in a stretcher. But from what I can tell, the kind people of Japan handled this situation pretty well. So good on you Japan. Don't you dare let that happen if I'm ever in your country.