I had an issue last summer with Lufthansa and Air One. Half of the contents of my bags were stolen during transit and it was pulling teeth to get anyone to listen. After about 6 months of denials, I blogged about it on my website. A week later, Lufthansa emailed me and said they would reopen the case. A month or so later, they refunded me.

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This article really hits home… it occurred while I was traveling from Denver, Colorado to Las Vegas, Nevada. This is quite a short flight so I assumed it would be a smooth one! I was wrong. When I arrived at the airport, one of my bags was not there. The other was.

The airport personel stated that it had been scanned off the plane on the tarmac but never showed up at baggage claim. To me this means that a worker on the tarmac or in the loading area somehow stole it, but I guess it could possibly have been another passenger. Anyways, for a week straight I was arguing, yelling, pulling my hair out while struggling with the inept customer service reps. In the end, I was compensated 3 months later with about a $400 usd check. This is by far less than what I had it the suitcase, but their policy was that if you wanted compensated for anything over $100, you had to produce a receipt from the purchase! As I had a few nice suits I had owned for a couple years, I couldn’t produce any sort of documentation. My biggest mistake was packing a Pocket PC and some electronic equipment in that suitcase (yep stupid, I know)… their policy is also that they WILL NOT replace any electronic equipment of any sort. My letter of protest and complaint never received a response!

While I’m still a bit upset about this incident, it only served to make me more cautious in what I do and don’t pack… still, it’s out of your hands once the luggage is “out of your hands”!

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I have had good experiences and horrendous experiences with lost luggage. Once Southwest lost my luggage and an airline employee drove it three hours from the airport to my home. Another time I lost a bag with more than $1000 of belongings and the airline proceeded to go bankrupt and I never got a dime. I think the main problem with lost luggage is that airlines are working on too tight a schedule for the handlers to do their job.

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Darren

42 million sounds a lot, where did this figure come from is it global? Generally a very small percentage of bag’s get lost.

Look at T5 at Heathrow and it can handle 27 million bag’s a year and thats just 1out all 8 main London terminals. Figures like this seem big like the press reports that a bank was spending 20 million on Christmas parties, then you read near the end that it is based on a budget of 20pounds per staff member, but 20 pound Christmas party is not such a good headline.

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I’ve never had any luggage go missing at the air port, but flyng last year, took extra care and packed second set of clothes and all Medicines in hand luggage, Just in Case.

Best thing found out was that I could clipper copy details from the Airlines website of who to contact and sent it to my Phone, so had all the numbers hand, again, Just in Case.

Thanks
Robert
P.s. I was a Boy Scout before you all ask, Moto Be Prepaired…….It has stood me in good stead for the rest of my life.

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Last summer, I was returning home and only had a carry on. However, my flight via United was using a small regional jet and we had to check luggage planeside, and there is a whole other canceled flight rant waiting to happen here. When I got off the plane in Orange County and went to collect my bag it wasn’t there. I went to the baggage worker plane side and asked if there was any other luggage. He said that my luggage was over there, pointing to a rack with one carryon left on it. I told him that wasn’t mine and he said to go to baggage claim and see if it was placed on the carousel on accident.

I trekked down to baggage claim and waited until everything came off for my flight. My bag never arrived. So I proceeded to go to the Baggage office and explain my situation. They said that someone must have taken the wrong bag when they got off of the plane. No duh! They opened the remaining carryon and tried to identify who it belonged to, but there was no luggage tag or personally identifying info in the bag. They filed a claim and told me they’d contact me when they heard anything. Meanwhile, my car keys were in the bag.

I had to go to the dealer and pay $40 to get a new car key made. Two days later, I finally get a call from the airline saying that an airline employee in Denver had called and said that their son had gotten home and realized he had picked up the wrong bag and they would deliver it to the airport in “2 days” when they came back to work. This wasn’t acceptable. A manager contacted the individual and had it brought down immediately.

The airline delivered the bag at 3 am and woke up my entire house when they rang the doorbell and then walked away.

I learned a lot from this experience, but most of all that those little claim checks they give you for planeside check in don’t mean squat!!!

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I haven’t checked a bag for many years.

I did have one bad case of delayed baggage not long after 9/11. The bag turned up just an hour before I headed to the airport at the end of 3 week trip around Spain. It was a struggle getting reimbursement from Thai for basic necessities. “Did you really need to buy underwear?” type questions. No compensation for wasted hours spent shopping for clothes, on phone with them, etc.

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It may have changed? Whuilst working in the Caribbean some years back I had reason to assist in tracking clinets (multiple) bags that had never showed up from NYC. In leaving no stone unturned I visited the lost baggage room and had a Very Good look around.

Judging by the dust thicknesses there were bags there going back years, left to die in a dark corner of, well, a “modern” airport of the time. Some of these bags to me seemed to have perfectly good exterior contact information on them. There are probably graveyards of old bags that never get home.

And if anything gets damaged, well, that is a whole new ballgame in extracting compensation.

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Hi,

Last month United recently lost my checked baggage. They do show the Bag scanned both in Boston and back into Dulles but it never made it to the carousel. After 3 weeks of them telling me they think they located it, I just filed a lost baggage claim. Since I was on a business trip, I did have 2 suits, shoes, casual wear , formal evening wear for an event I was attending and of course the cost of the luggage itself . Total claim I am making is just over $1900.00 I will let you know what they end up paying and how long it takes. They claim 45 days. Perhaps because I am a Premiere Exec and was flying first class, this may expedite the process although everyone should get the same service.

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I am super pissed and continue to grow even more pissed with each passing day! This is day 9 and Southwest Airlines has no clue as to where my bag could be! This was a non-stop flight. I sent off for a claim form by certified mail, and I ‘m wondering if anyone has had any luck with reimbursement from Southwest. I’ve already been inconvienced by not having my stuff during a business trip, and I hate to think of what is ahead of me in customer service / claim / reimbursement issues. . . I just pray that everything will work out ok, and that I receive a decent reimbursement.

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My family and I traveled with Emirates Airlines last December and at my destination when I tried to collect my luggage, much to my horror I discovered that I was missing 3 of my luggage. It took me about 7 days to receive 2 of them but the 3rd was never found. I filed all the necessary paper works including a signed affidavit of the contents with the local Emirates office before I left for home. I was told by Emirates employee that it will take 6 weeks to resolve the issue. After 2 months Emirates called my relatives at the local number that I have provided to come and pick up a check.

I called Emirates and explained to them that I lived in the US and it is not possible for me to go to another country to pick up my compensation check. Much to my surprise I was told that I will receive much lower amount than what my total loss amounted to and the New York office will contact me. Sure enough the New York office contacted me almost 2 weeks later and informed me that they are ready to send me a check.

When I questioned the amount the representative told me that she had her instructions from the head office in Dubai and she will not be able to negotiate the amount of my compensation. When I asked how did Emirates come to conclusion that the compensation amount should be $530 when my signed affidavit of lost items totaled around $1100. I was told that since I did not provide any receipts, the amount was $530.

I emailed Emirates 2 times since then and it has been another 2 weeks but I am yet to hear from them. I informed Emirates that at the time of my paper work for lost luggage and contents, it neither was on the form nor was I told that receipts were required in order to receive just compensation. Should one carry receipts to a vacation? Why require signing affidavit if Emirates will question the truthfulness of the person who signed? Should one exaggerate on the lost content list in order to get just and due compensation? It is over 3 months now but I am yet to have my lost luggage issue resolved.

Needless to say that I have the feeling of utter frustration and total helplessness. So I decided to write blog and I hope my fellow passengers will be aware of Emirates Airlines.

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Terminal 5 at Heathrow. What more can you say. They ended up sending all the lost luggage to sites in Europe to be sorted. I believe most of the lost luggage was auctioned off because they had no way of matching it to an owner!

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I travelled with Lufthansa a few days ago. The trip was milan to London Heathrow. On the forward trip; the check-in representative for the aitrline was rude and proceeded to swear at me telling me that i should use the check-inn kiosk and that I should start to f*** learn how to use the kiosk. He said this under his breath. I lodged a complaint to the check-in supervisor and told them last time flying lufthansa. On my retuen journey, the flight was delayed for 3 hours without any communication as to the reason. Worse was yet to come as my luggage never turned-up on arrival. I have been waiting for 3 days without any update even though I wass told an e-mail wouild be sent to me and I would have the luggage back in 24 Hrs.

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I will never forget a Delta flight I took in 1998–I was moving back from Austria to the United States, and I had quite a bit of checked baggage. Included within this was my 100 CD book, and when I landed, this and a few other small things were missing from my bag. I, of course, appealed to Delta to replace the items that had been stolen, at which point they agreed to compensate me–for everything I had a receipt for (!?!)

First of all, who keeps their receipts for anything? Second of all, who keeps receipts for 100 CDs they’ve been collecting for almost a decade?! After escalating the issue up the hierarchy via many letters and phone calls, Delta finally agreed to pay me ~$600 for all of my lost goods. Better than nothing? Yes. But nowhere near the replacement cost of my CDs.

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If people would just pack smartly, this wouldn’t be as big an issue. Show up within the recommended time frame. Have your car keys, medication, a change of clothes, toiletries, and anything you need in the next 24 hours in your carry-on. Use a little common sense. Well over 99% of luggage makes it to the passenger within that time frame and usually arrives on the next flight out. If you think you won’t be paying for this compensation in higher airfares, you are sadly mistaken. Airlines have already cut back to the bare bones, and from where do you think that money is going to come? People do and will continue to inflate the costs of items in their bags. Everyone wears couture. Yeah, right! I see more bankruptcies in the future with this continued attitude. I wish people would start being more proactive about a situation that can never be perfect.

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