Saturday, January 24, 2009
Our "tail" of woe
Our luggage is found...no thanks, really, to NWA. I think my brain is still mssing, though...
Here's how our return trip broke down, and our luggage was...misplaced.
Our plane, which was scheduled to leave at 6:40 AM (meaning we had to get up at 4 AM, which was 1 AM our time) had "mechanical problems". What this meant was that someone was too lazy to do the maintenance, so the Oxygen tank wasn't full. Also, there was no water for coffee or snacks on the snack cart--those weren't mechanical problems, but it reinforces the idea that they just decided to head home early. Makes you wonder what else they slacked off on.
Anyway, being a holiday (MLK), we had to wait an hour to get someone to top off the tank. As we only had 45 minutes to get our next plane, we missed it. No problem, they could put us on a flight nine hours later. As much as I love God's frozen wasteland, spending 9 hours in the Minneapolis/St Paul airport was not my idea of fun. So I got us on a flight into Frisco only a couple hours later, and got some friends to pick us up.
Our luggage, however, didn't follow us; it was on that flight 9 hours later. Once that flight came in, I called Northwest, and they had no information on our luggage, 2.5 hours after it landed. I could only talk to the 800 number person, and they said that they would love to give us the number for our local baggage claim folks, but it wasn't actually available in their system. I tried to find it in google, but no luck. I finally went to bed.
The next morning, their web site said that our luggage had been sent to a delivery company. They gave us a phone number for that company, and--finally--the local baggage number. Or so we thought. The delivery company's phone number was disconnected, and the baggage number was constantly busy. I finally found a number for the delivery company, up in Oakland or somewhere. They said "we sold that part of the business 3 months ago", and gave me another number to try. We called them, and they said that they had no record of our luggage. I called Northwest again, and they finally found me a number for San Jose, but that number just went to a recording. (It was a 441- number, so it might be the one below. I don't remember).
Finally, I decided to go back to the airport and get in their face. There's no Northwest office in the baggage area, but there is a Delta one, and--as they kept telling us the whole time--Delta and Northwest are now one. Even if they aren't really quite. So I went and talked to the Delta guy, and he poked his keyboard a little, and said that there was no record of our luggage. Great. I wasn't going away, though, so he asked me to wait, closed up his little office, and went to "talk to the Northwest folks". About 5 minutes later, he returned with our luggage. So I guess the delivery company was right, they really didn't have our luggage!
Sheesh, if they weren't going to deliver our luggage, why didn't they just say so in the first place?
As I thought about this whole episode, I wondered why they would do this. Didn't it cost them something to do this? Then I realized that all the inconvenience and cost was on our part: The plane we got bumped to was flying anyway, and so putting us on it didn't cost them a dime. Ditto that family heading to Disneyland that got split up on two flights 4 hours apart. It didn't matter to Northwest that this family would have to wait 5 and 9 hours in Minneapolis and then half would have to wait another 4 hours in LA. It didn't matter that there was no water and only a bit of food and drinks on the flight. And if they have a fixed contract with the delivery company, it doesn't even matter if they have to deliver a few bags--if they manage to get around to it. And there's not a whole lot of choices in flight any more, so what do they care?
Northwest baggage claim, San Jose's phone number is listed as (408) 441-5502 in the airport. You might also try (408) 414-4503 or (408) 441-4503, I couldn't see that one as well on the agent's bulletin board.
The new delivery company is City Services, (408) 573-7067
Update:
I received a comment via private email from someone who got a call from City Services insisting that they had her bags, based on some...questionable assumptions. When she told them that they weren't her bags, they essentially said "OK, we're just going to give up, then". She came away with this moral:
She went on to say "CARRY ON at all costs". I'm not sure I'd go that far, but then, my luggage hasn't been lost for nine years!
Here's how our return trip broke down, and our luggage was...misplaced.
Our plane, which was scheduled to leave at 6:40 AM (meaning we had to get up at 4 AM, which was 1 AM our time) had "mechanical problems". What this meant was that someone was too lazy to do the maintenance, so the Oxygen tank wasn't full. Also, there was no water for coffee or snacks on the snack cart--those weren't mechanical problems, but it reinforces the idea that they just decided to head home early. Makes you wonder what else they slacked off on.
Anyway, being a holiday (MLK), we had to wait an hour to get someone to top off the tank. As we only had 45 minutes to get our next plane, we missed it. No problem, they could put us on a flight nine hours later. As much as I love God's frozen wasteland, spending 9 hours in the Minneapolis/St Paul airport was not my idea of fun. So I got us on a flight into Frisco only a couple hours later, and got some friends to pick us up.
Our luggage, however, didn't follow us; it was on that flight 9 hours later. Once that flight came in, I called Northwest, and they had no information on our luggage, 2.5 hours after it landed. I could only talk to the 800 number person, and they said that they would love to give us the number for our local baggage claim folks, but it wasn't actually available in their system. I tried to find it in google, but no luck. I finally went to bed.
The next morning, their web site said that our luggage had been sent to a delivery company. They gave us a phone number for that company, and--finally--the local baggage number. Or so we thought. The delivery company's phone number was disconnected, and the baggage number was constantly busy. I finally found a number for the delivery company, up in Oakland or somewhere. They said "we sold that part of the business 3 months ago", and gave me another number to try. We called them, and they said that they had no record of our luggage. I called Northwest again, and they finally found me a number for San Jose, but that number just went to a recording. (It was a 441- number, so it might be the one below. I don't remember).
Finally, I decided to go back to the airport and get in their face. There's no Northwest office in the baggage area, but there is a Delta one, and--as they kept telling us the whole time--Delta and Northwest are now one. Even if they aren't really quite. So I went and talked to the Delta guy, and he poked his keyboard a little, and said that there was no record of our luggage. Great. I wasn't going away, though, so he asked me to wait, closed up his little office, and went to "talk to the Northwest folks". About 5 minutes later, he returned with our luggage. So I guess the delivery company was right, they really didn't have our luggage!
Sheesh, if they weren't going to deliver our luggage, why didn't they just say so in the first place?
As I thought about this whole episode, I wondered why they would do this. Didn't it cost them something to do this? Then I realized that all the inconvenience and cost was on our part: The plane we got bumped to was flying anyway, and so putting us on it didn't cost them a dime. Ditto that family heading to Disneyland that got split up on two flights 4 hours apart. It didn't matter to Northwest that this family would have to wait 5 and 9 hours in Minneapolis and then half would have to wait another 4 hours in LA. It didn't matter that there was no water and only a bit of food and drinks on the flight. And if they have a fixed contract with the delivery company, it doesn't even matter if they have to deliver a few bags--if they manage to get around to it. And there's not a whole lot of choices in flight any more, so what do they care?
Northwest baggage claim, San Jose's phone number is listed as (408) 441-5502 in the airport. You might also try (408) 414-4503 or (408) 441-4503, I couldn't see that one as well on the agent's bulletin board.
The new delivery company is City Services, (408) 573-7067
Update:
I received a comment via private email from someone who got a call from City Services insisting that they had her bags, based on some...questionable assumptions. When she told them that they weren't her bags, they essentially said "OK, we're just going to give up, then". She came away with this moral:
SO the moral of story is....
1) Airlines NO LONGER care to find you; they subcontract out to this 'airline delivery service'
2) this sub contractor does NOT care about accuracy or even a good samaritan trying to encourage and provide assistance;
So do NOT have ANY expectations of finding 'lost luggage' .
She went on to say "CARRY ON at all costs". I'm not sure I'd go that far, but then, my luggage hasn't been lost for nine years!
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