Lost luggage... help please??

[dontpressthat]

Morning all,

Hoping somebody can help with a lost baggage issue..
Thurs evening EI managed to lose the wifes luggage between DUB/LHR. None of the channels seem to be able to give me a reasonable answer as to where it may be.
My question is, at what stage on its journey is the tag scanned/recorded.. by that I mean is it possible to say whether it made it onto the flight or was scanned on arrival then went walkies at LHR etc.

Any Info would be appreciated as all Im being told at the moment is wait and see.

DPT

[BusyB]

To try and raise a smile in your circumstances


YouTube - Lost Luggage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZt7Pu2jc6Y)

[Checkboard]

The luggage tag with its bar code is printed at luggage check-in, attached to the bag, and the bag is sent by conveyor down to the baggage hall, where it is picked up by hand and loaded onto either the cart (for smaller aircraft - 737 and smaller, with hand-loaded holds) or container (for larger aircraft - A320 and larger with containerised holds). The loaders at this stage are just looking at the three-letter IATA airport code on the tag.

The bags are then loaded onto the aircraft - if hand loaded, they are counted at this stage. If container loaded they were counted onto the containers. The counting is done by removing a small bar code sticker and placing it on a tally sheet (or sheets). The baggage piece total is then compared with the total number checked in at the desk, and if the number tallies correctly, the aircraft departs.

Once the aircraft arrives, the bags are placed onto the passenger baggage belts for collection, and picked up by the passengers. At no point in this process are the bar codes scanned. The bar codes are just for tracking bags when things go wrong.

So your bag didn't turn up on the belt? Human errors in the above process happen; bags fall off trucks on the way to the aircraft and are returned to the baggage hall, some are loaded onto the wrong container/baggage train, some get stuck in the belt system etc etc. The count should (and usually does) pick these errors up - but as I said, human errors occur. Sometimes it is known that a bag is missing in the system somewhere, but the aircraft departs anyway as delaying the aircraft to search for the bag costs more than sending the bag later. Sometimes baggage is left behind deliberately due to weight issues on the aircraft (although this is rare, as it is expensive) - if there were many passengers missing bags this may have been the case (perhaps an entire container left off).

Once a lost bag is found - one of those wandering around the baggage belt, uncollected at the end of the flight, or found on the ramp having fallen off a truck, or in the baggage hall etc etc the bar code is scanned, and the airline uses its network to fly the bag to its correct destination. The time this takes depends on how often the bag's destination is served by the airline.

[EuroPPL]

It probably wan't on the 'plane. It will be screened again and sent later to LHR. I don't know how EI handles it, but last time I lost a bag at LHR (with KLM) it was couriered to me a couple of days later, just in time for my return flight. I think they 'phoned me the day before they sent it.

I have lost bags a few times, and they have always turned up in the end. In my experience, they often will not tell you anything until the bag is at the destination airport.

[Icarus]

Checkboard: Maybe 20 years ago but not today at a modern airport! Bar codes are scanned by the sortation/reconciliation system. Bags and passengers are reconciled, final manifests of loaded and missing (not seen) bags available immediately at doors closed.

EI would know as the aircraft pushed back what bags were not loaded and could start the tracing process before the aircraft was airborne.

[Saintsman]

I had a suitcase go astray which I never got back so I claimed on my travel insurance. Big mistake.

They wanted receipts for every item in it otherwise they wouldn't pay. They offered about 1/5th of the value. Fortunately my home contents insurance covered the rest but it took about 6 months to get sorted because as I claimed travel insurance first (I thought that was what it was for), the home bods wouldn't do anything until the travel bods had finished.

So if you are going to claim, it might be worth doing the home insurance route first and letting them know that you also have travel insurance. They can then fight it out between them.

[dontpressthat]

Thanks for the info everybody.. very helpful. No sign of the wandering suitcase yet though.

DPT

[Checkboard]

Checkboard: Maybe 20 years ago but not today at a modern airport!
I live in the UK - 20 years behind the times. I am fairly sure I have posted the current process at my airline. ;)

[elgnin]

Last year a mate arived at Gatwick but his case did not. A week later still no case despite serval calls to the handler at Gatwick. I was sure that if Gatwick had not seen it, as they insisted they had not, then it could not have left the departing airport, Thassoniki in Greece. As it turned out I was correct and as it was an Olympic flight, the case was taken to Athens (Olympic base) and was stored in a room (possibly a warehouse given the Olympic track record). It was only after several heated exchanges by phone to a manager (??) in Greece and 2 weeks later that they went to that room/warehouse whilst I was on the phone with them and itentified the case through a detailed description. It transpired that the handle on the case to which the luggage tag was attached had been broken in the baggage system and the tag had come off - therefore the system did not know where to send the case, hense it was sent to the lost luggage warehouse in Athens. To be fair Olympic apologised and sent the case to the UK delivering it my pals house 2 days later. The point I make is that it is important to establish whether your case actually got onto the flight in the first place. If it did not, try (and you might have to be forceful) and get the airline who you flew with, to check their lost luggage. I wish you luck and hope you get it back. :)

[blaggerman]

I have one of my bags take a wander at least once a year. They always show up within a few days. If you haven't already done so, you should go to Lost@Found (http://www.mylostbag.com/en/index.php?ref=lingus) and enter your details to see if that will glean anything useful.

[dontpressthat]

Well it arrived today... Minus anything of any value!!

Somebody somewhere has opened it and thieved some of the contents, And no I doubt they 'fell out' as an electrical item was pinched, along with the charger which was packed seperately in a makeup bag. The entire contents were completely jumbled up and had obviously been well and truely riffled through.


Very frustrating and nobody seems intersted...!!!!!!!!!!:mad::mad::mad::mad: