A story – The guy in question travels a lot. His other name is ‘a frequent flyer’. The day before yesterday he was to take last flight of Spicejet airlines on Bengaluru – Pune sector.
Both these places have only one airport catering to both domestic & international flights. The scanning of baggage takes place behind the scene and not in front of the passenger.
The guy always has a laptop and one more baggage (this time an overnighter) which invariably gets checked in because of one shaving kit it carries within. As always, he had put a Samsonite no. lock on the overnighter before handing it over to staff at Bengaluru airport.
Flight concluded, he picked up his luggage from the conveyor belt and went home. All routine work.
Once home, he bent down to open the overnighter and this is what he saw. The Samsonite lock alongwith the zip tab was missing !
I am not telling you about the expensive items that were missing from it including his DSLR camera, which, out of sheer laziness of carrying, he had kept in.
It was 1:30 at night, he immediately went back to airport and reported. Obviously they refused to accept that it happened during the period the baggage was in their custody. However, since the baggage tag was intact, they could not deny it was with them.
Moral of the story ???? What do you say ?
P.S.– This is the second time this blog has reported misdeeds of an airlines/airport. Here is the first post.
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Airlines / their Baggage handling is responsible .. ask the person to write to the Airlines Chief …. they might act fast / respond responsibly ….
I have till date never ever checked in my DSLR and would never do it after reading this. Hope the airlines would compensate.
Oh no!! It is never a good idea to check it anything even remotely valuable and important.
Hope folks read your post and try to be more careful.
I never check in anything valuable in my checked in baggage. Recently my brother in law went to South Africa, many of his fellow Indian passengers were complaining of their suitcase being cut open to remove valuables from inside, even currency notes. The authorities at the airport were very blase about it saying that you should not have put in expensive stuff!!
That sucks but I doubt he will be able to do anything, starting with proving the expensive items where in the bag.
Airlines are bcoming less and less customer service oriented. Recent examples for us:
– Plane late for 35 hours, no compensation, no food, hotel night given at the last minute
– Missed plane #2 because plane #1 (same company, it was just a connection) was several hours late. Had to pay for our hotel night.
I think you really have to be paranoid and carry everything of value with you in the carry-on, minus the prohibited stuffs.
baggage is my biggest nightmare while flying. I would be devastated if i had lost my DSLR for sure. was the airline finally helpful?
Definitely never put anything of value in the suitcases which are checked in- years ago my daughter had her brand new CD player taken when at the last minute she had to check in her extra handcarry- although it was ‘locked’- the lock was a feeble excuse for a safe guard and the bag was opened.
Moral of the story: never keep any valuables in checked-in luggage.