Dear Alex,
Earlier this year we booked a short trip to Phuket with Jetstar [from Singapore]. After a great time we arrived back in Singapore only to find that the airline had lost our suitcase, which contained all our summer clothes (we each had to purchase a fresh set) and gifts for family members.
Three days later the missing case arrived but it had been opened and some of the contents was missing. Please inform your readers that you may save [money] when flying with a budget airline but, equally, you can lose out when your suitcase goes astray.
Bruno Hoflich, Midland, Ontario, Canada
Alex replies
To be fair to Jetstar, all airlines, even the best of them, mishandle (lose or delay) baggage from time to time. According to airline information body SITA, the world’s carriers collectively mislaid 25 million pieces of luggage last year.
Most baggage is mishandled when passengers change planes, so in your case you were simply unlucky. If it is any consolation, you got off lightly compared with some other readers’ experiences. (See “Lost in transit”, businesstraveller.com/archive/2010/june-2010.)
