[Sam Kapasi]

This is my girlfriend speaking

"Please call BA baggage service (not customer service) and tell them that you need to fill out a DPR(damaged property report) and pilferage report. Please prepare a list of the missing/damaged items (including baggage and baggage condition), ask them for the fax number, and address the fax to the duty officer.
Please ask for compensation for the missing items and replacement baggage for the damaged bags.
Depending on the condition of your baggage, BA should either repair it, ot replace it for you. They may pay for the missing items. Please do this today, every day's delay is against you"

[rjstyles69]

Sam thats indeed a really helpful pointer on how I go about the problem. Will keep you guys posted on this.

Cheers

[sreenivass]

Originally Posted by Samurai

This is very true. My uncle & aunt from NY always take BA since the 70s, and this happens to them often. Baggage coming late, many items missing almost everytime and still they insist on travelling BA.

I have been lucky, travelled mostly Lufthansa/ United, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore airlines.

Baggage arriving late happened a couple of times with me too with Lufthansa. They delivered it at home after a day or so, without loss of items or damages. My observation was: every time I carried some thing like pickles, etc.. this was happening. I was told by a friend, sniffer dogs at airports go crazy about the smell and cause the luggage to be detained for inspection. Another reason quoted was luggage gets dropped due to overbooking too, most of the airlines do this.

[rks]

Originally Posted by rjstyles69

Hey guys, just wanted to share my to be better halves experience travelling to Seattle in BA.

A very dangerous typo -- you mean "...my to be better half's ...".
One solution to this kind of problem might be to actually take the trouble of producing your luggage tags at your airline counter in every transit point and asking them to ensure that your luggage is loaded on to the correct flight. I wonder if airlines would entertain such queries and allow you to confirm that your luggage has been loaded. That would serve the purpose of preventing such errors or at least catching them early.

[rjstyles69]

Already engaged mate, she had to fly and hence marriage had to be postponed.Thats y i termed it that ways .

I doubt if they would entertain that and the whole idea behind a direct check-in is to have a hassle free travel without having to run around for your luggage at transit. Trust me its a pain when you travel this far and have to run around looking for your luggage @ Heathrow especially.

[vivekiny2k]

this happened in airfrance, to my brother last week. from detroit to delhi.

his baggage arrived late, they offerred to courier it to our hometown (jabalpur). and a new digital camera went missing.

most probably it could be the courier guys, but still, it was a failure on the airlines part to have delivered the luggage.

[bigman]

From past experience BA are pretty good when it comes to dealing with such problems.

My grandfather had a bag go missing in 2002 and they settled quite easily paying him over £250. He did not even have to supply receipts for everything. As he had paid only £350 for his return ticket (after OAP dicount) he was happy with that.

I have had bags delayed for a day when travelling on Air France and KLM. Air France paid me £50 for inconvenience (I was returning home to the UK). KLM paid me close to £100 (I was travelling out to India).

Have a look on the BA web site as they should have all the contact information you need to file a complaint.

Also I tend to carry things like digital cameras in my hand baggage. Never really understood why people pack such items in their checkin baggage. If you saw how your suitcases etc are thrown about by the baggage loaders you too would never put electical items in a suitcase.

[ajmat]

Buddy - better read this

Telegraph | News | Heathrow baggage chaos

Heathrow baggage chaos
By Edmund Conway
Last Updated: 1:27am GMT 30/12/2006



Tens of thousands of families travelling abroad for Christmas and the New Year have been left without their luggage following a series of administrative fiascos by British Airways handlers at Heathrow.

A "baggage mountain" is building up outside Terminal Four, and families are being advised that they may have to wait weeks for their items to be located and returned to them. It is the latest embarrassing episode for BA, which had to cancel hundreds of flights over the Christmas period due to fog.

The airline last night apologised to the estimated 20,000 passengers affected by the baggage incident, and promised they would be compensated. The bill for the airline could run to as much as £16 million.

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BA said those affected had lost their suitcases for between 24 hours and 10 days. But with thousands of families still deprived of Christmas presents they had intended to give over the festive season, insiders fear the incident will cause further damage to the company's reputation.

A spokesman said: "We normally handle around 75,000 bags every day at Heathrow but we started the busy pre-Christmas week with a backlog of around 8,000 bags in Terminal Four as a result of a failure with the baggage belt system.

As we cleared this initial backlog, a new backlog of several thousand bags appeared due to the cancellations because of fog

[Sam Kapasi]

Well, that's very interesting reading ajmat.

Well, i stand by what i said earlier. BA stands for Baggage afterwards and I'm not gonna be flying those guys for sure.

[rjstyles69]

hey folks just an update on the problem. BA has readily agreed to pay for 3 pairs of clothes since the delay was for abt 15 days.The tale doesn't end here ;

They have asked us to fax them receipts of the purchase made in Seattle and include the value of the missing items from the baggage to their NY office.

Regarding both the trollies which has been rendered useless, have been asked to send the photographs of the same to their NY office and a reasonable price would be paid for the same.

Also was told that they were pretty fast in getting back to my lady on what needs to be done and how the claims have to be made.
Guess what, it was an Indian looking into this claim and said she did more than happy to help get this sorted ASAP. As per the official at BA, once the claims have been authorized they would settle the amount in 15 days time max.

Am still contemplating and waiting to see how BA sorts this.
Sam like you said "BA stands for Baggage Afterwards" is really true.Had one experience with them in 2003 and never traveled in BA after that.

@Bigman a digital camera was in the checkin bag since the SLR was in the cabin luggage.Also just my personal opinion, Air France is pretty good when it comes baggage handling because I lost my luggage on my previous travel at the Paris airport(Charles De Gaulle) and the officials did a wonderful job in finding my baggage and calling me up and this was during thanksgiving. Nothing was damaged or lost.
Once again it could be just another bad day for you when everything goes against you.

Thanks once again guys was really thoughtful of all you folks who have given suggestions on how to go about this.
T-BHP rocks in every way.


Will keep you all posted on this.

Cheers guys

[Sam Kapasi]

Excellent. So they're not getting away stock free. See? I told you, no need to go to court.

Do let us know what compensation you get. This will be an eye opener to some.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

. BA stands for Baggage afterwards and I'm not gonna be flying those guys for sure.

...or Baggage Altered?????

[bigman]

Originally Posted by rjstyles69

@Bigman a digital camera was in the checkin bag since the SLR was in the cabin luggage.Also just my personal opinion, Air France is pretty good when it comes baggage handling because I lost my luggage on my previous travel at the Paris airport(Charles De Gaulle) and the officials did a wonderful job in finding my baggage and calling me up and this was during thanksgiving. Nothing was damaged or lost.
Once again it could be just another bad day for you when everything goes against you.

I guess that explains the camera thing, I tend to lump my camcorder, digi cam, chargers etc etc in my hand baggage with one light change of clothes. I guess with females they have to look their best for when they get off the plane so the obligatory makeup bag etc must take priority of digital toys etc.

I guess everything is subjective. I have always had many problems with KLM on outward bound flights (overbookings, staff who invent hand baggage sizes, staff who invent new securiy policies in Holland which the UK customer services director claims do not exist).

I tend to travel on Lufthansa now as they are efficient. The staff are a bit cold but I can put up with that for 8 hours far easier than an unfortunate cousin who endured urine trickling down the isle from the toilets on an Air India flight from Heathrow to IGIA.

My cousin flew on Mahan Airways and had a MP3 player stolen from the seat pouch whilst she slept.

Air France were pretty good. I had the suitcase the next day and they paid £50. Considering I was returning home to the UK and had clothes etc at home, I thought the £50 was very generous. The buggers at KLM took close to a year and threats of civil court action to pay up.

[ajmat]

My conclusion is that

If I go east - Singapore airlines
If I go west - Emirates

Sod, the wait/ extra time at the hub airports - everything works and they make sure of that!

[jat]

Originally Posted by ajmat

...or Baggage Altered?????

can be

Baggage amemded

Baggage adjusted

etc