On bags and bungling

When you travel as much as I do, it’s not surprising that,occasionally, a piece of luggage fails to arrive when it is supposed to.

Inthirty years of travel writing, my checked in bag has failed to appearon the carousel on no more than three or four occasions. With oneexception, they reappeared within a day or two and were promptlydelivered to me at a convenient location and time. Apart from fillingin the form, no further action was required on my part.

But whenUnited Airlines managed to lose my suitcase between Chicago andLansing, a distance of just over two hundred miles, you would haveexpected the matter to be resolved quickly and efficiently.

Afterall, after the carousel emptied after the 29 minute flight to Lansing,they KNEW that the bag was still in Chicago. The lady on the Unitedticket desk said it had just been sent to the wrong pier and would bearriving on the next flight, three hours later. Not a problem,especially as they had a courier service scheduled to depart at 10pm. Ifilled up the appropriate form, and departed with the promise that‘someone would call’ with the delivery details. Reassuringly, my copyof the delayed baggage report told me that United was ‘doing everythingpossible to quickly reunite me with my property’.

Just after11pm, I thought it wise to check the status of my baggage online. Butnot only was the wrong type of bag listed, they were apologising forthe fact that the bag had still not been located.

The number tocall for assistance required much button pressing and voice recognitionbefore I got through to a human being. The guy had a lot of troubleunderstanding me and I him. I put it down to the lateness of the hourand the fact my brain was locked into a time zone five hours ahead. Buteventually, I was reassured that my bag was in fact in Lansing andwould be delivered ‘first thing in the morning’. The wrong entries onthe online web tracking service would, he assured me, be corrected.

When,by 8am the following morning, the bag had still not arrived and therewas no message on either the house phone or my mobile, I checked onlineagain. My silver hard shell suitcase was still being listed as a greyzippered bag. Worryingly, it still reported that they had not locatedit. I was not reassured by their statement that ‘most bags turned upwithin 24 hours.

So I initiated another phone call. The voicerecognition they use is pretty clever. It finds out your name, your bagtag details and, having ascertained all of that, tells you it will passthat information on to their baggage agent. Well it doesn’t. You haveto go through the whole rigmarole again.

The bag is at Lansingairport waiting for me to collect I was cheeringly told. I took a deepbreath, asked why such a simple job as delivering my suitcase was beingso incompetently handled and was reassured, after much apologising (butnot a great deal of sincerity) for the inconvenience, that it would bedelivered to my address as a priority.


Two hours later, Iemailed another department at United, guest response, who’d been veryhelpful and efficient prior to my trip. The lady called me within a fewminutes, apologised profusely and promised to sort it out. Apparentlythe driver who was supposed to be delivering to me had been sent northand would not be back for some time. But she had the agent at Lansingairport on the other line and the bag would ‘certainly be delivered bylunchtime’. As I was heading out to lunch, we agreed that I’d leave alittle note on the door telling the delivery service where to put itand my cell phone number so they could confirm that they’d found thehouse and the case was there.

Returning home at 3pm, there’dstill been no call and no sign of the bag, so I emailed guest responseagain who responded by return, saying they’d been told the bag was onits way and that the delivery company had been told to ring me byreturn.

At five, having heard nothing, I went online, nothingupdated there, so I rang the baggage number again. This time Idiscovered that all the button pressing and voice recognition was acomplete waste of time. Apparently the systems don’t pass on all theinformation you have so painstakingly entered.

After a lot ofwaiting, repeating information, spelling out details in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet which is clearly not taught to thebaggage agents, I asked where my call was being handled. ‘New Delhi’, Iwas told.

After about twenty minutes, the man handling my calldecided that the incident was above his pay grade, so I was passed toVipul, his supervisor.

As I had been waiting for so long, I asked if he would call me back.

It’snow 24 hours since I arrived in Lansing, Michigan. There’s been no callfrom the courier company. No call from Vipul. No call from UnitedAirlines at Lansing airport.

Read more by Mike Souter at smashingplates.blogspot.com