[stevescoots]

Lost track of how many flights but it must be in the high hundreds. never lost bags, as in never got them back. however, have been delayed 3 times.

RDU to LHR on AA/BA. bags were left at RDU. Did not know until carousel empty and had to go to lost luggage desk, were returned to me 2 days later.
AMS-LHR-HKG. Arrived at HKG with a note to contact baggage company. bag was left in LHR, arrived in HKG on the next flight and sent to hotel. Delayed total about 10 hours.
HKG to HEL-LHR. Waited to carousel empty then went to baggage handlers. Could not locate bag, they found bag 24 hours later and I received it 2 days later at home.

[UnhappyWithSAS]

SAS is BAD – SAS “lost” 4 out of 4 pieces of our luggage on a flight from Stavanger to Copenhagen. Something about a baggage over load for the high season. Excuse me, but I think that most of the passengers make reservations weeks or months in advance so SAS should be able to anticipate high load levels and manage the project to deliver our bags on time and to the right location!

[esselle]

Only a few losses during the past 25 years or so of travel, but most memorable was arriving at T7 at JFK for Concorde flight to London. Met at desk by BA station manager and assistant. They handed bag to agent, then escorted me to CCR, where we sat and I drank a glass of champagne. Agent brought my boarding pass and baggage tag. I was then escorted to the aircraft, had an uneventful flight to London, where I (eventually) discovered that my bag was still in New York……..

[ViajeroUK]

Delayed several times, but so far no total losses

Worst was Iberia, LHR/MAD/AGP in J class, two checked bags failed to arrive, received usual paperwork, rang following day to be told still not arrived, same following day, but was told they were “probably in Malaga, if I wanted to come to the airport to check I could do”, at my own expense, Chose to do that, entered the baggage storage area, minimal security checks, and allowed to search for my bags, which I found quite easily, then allowed to walk out with no one checking that I had taken the correct bags, never flown Iberia since. No compensation or apology.

BA, LHR – SEA, CW, whilst waiting at immigration heard a tannoy message with my name to report to baggage handling, told that one bag (priority tagged) had not been loaded at LHR. After a bit of moaning given an overnight amenity bag and a pre-loaded Visa debit card for (I think) US$200, enough to splash out at the Sears sale, bag arrived 24hrs alter.

Most recent, GDL/MEX/AMS/BHX in J . Bad weather in Mexico City caused ATC delays to lots of flights, the GDL flight eventually landed at MEX 10 minutes before the scheduled KLM departure for AMS, The purser on the GDL flight had said don’t worry, all flights are delayed, sure enough the departure boards inside terminal showed the KL flight delayed, but upon reaching the desk it had already closed. The Sky Priority desk initially said any pax transferring form AeroMexico flights would have to return to that desk to arrange hotel/flight rebooking, but this was one time my Plat card seemed to make a difference. The bad weather had meant that the AF inbound 380 had to be diverted, and had only just arrived at MEX, 3 hrs late, so rebooked onto that.. Bags had been tagged via AMS so on arrival next day at BHX not at all surprised that bags were not there. Reported to the desk, and told that bags were still in MEX, and would be shipped asap. Checked next day to find they had been shipped MEX to CDG late previous evening, and were delivered to my home following morning. Very satisfied with the service recovery/re-routing process by the satff at MEX, given the exceptional weather which had caused so much disruption in Mexico City

[Charles-P]

In all my years of business travel never once had a problem but then I very rarely checked luggage. Now retired it’s different as I am doing a lot more travel with Mrs P whose idea of packing light is only one case not two.
We flew with BA to Miami last week for a wedding and when we arrived no case, BA staff were superb in the way they dealt with us. They quickly established the bag had been loaded onto a later flight (not sure why) and would be arriving later the same day. They took our hotel details, sent me two texts during the day giving me updates on the progress of the bag and then delivered it to the hotel later in the day.

[SouthernOcean]

I have been lucky, in 30+ years of travelling I have never lost bags, only suffered two delays.

The first was my own fault, I checked in very late for a BA flight from LHR to AMS, I have it but my bag did not. I was working somewhere in the east of the Netherlands, my bag arrived at the hotel the next day.

The second was on a flight from BNA-PHL-LHR with US Air/BA (back in the days when BA had a partnership with BA). A storm over Philadelphia meant that the Nashville flight diverted to MDT, arriving in PHL just as the BA flight was leaving. The agent at PHL re-booked me on an early morning flight to JKF to pick up the day-time BA 747 to LHR. The connection at LHR was tight and my bag didn’t make it. BA loaded my bag on the 2nd Concorde flight which arrived at LHR an hour or so after the 747. Good service, but I would have preferred if I have been on Concorde and my bag on the 747.

[canucklad]

Consider myself relatively lucky, considering the amount of flights I’ve taken.

Lost, never to be seen again ….EDI-AMS-YYZ with KLM
Hand luggage taken off me by Northwest at BOS didn’t make it to YVR, delivered the next day !

Most bizarrely was my mate’s bag not turning up in HKG after a transferring at CDG.
Bizarre, because mine did and we both checked in at the same time at EDI.
AF wanted him to collect it from the airport, rather than deliver it, although they finally relented! .

I never lock my bag now, and don’t pack anything valuable in my hold luggage anyway.
Apparently a bag that looks as if it’s got something worth stealing is more likely to vanish for good.
And fancy /rare luggage tags are quite likely not to make it through certain airports as baggage handlers are becoming more and more e-bay savvy. My robust and very secure AC commemorative Vancouver 2010 tags mysteriously vanished into the LHR ether.

[AnthonyDunn]

Twice. First experience was about fifteen years ago when BA left it off LGW-GIB and it pitched up four days later whilst we were in the middle of the pueblos blancos – and minus shortwave transistor radio. BA refused to pay for the latter citing their “no valuables in checked baggage” T&Cs.

The second occasion was very recently on the way back from PER-DOH-OSL-LHR and the bag failed to make the last connection even though QR/BA had hours to make the transfer. The bag had been correctly checked through. Of course, the new rules would no longer allow this.

Having completed the PIR at T5, I checked and updated this online once home to ensure that the details were entirely correct. Interesting to see how user unfriendly the BA lost baggage tracking system was to the T5 staff…. But that’s another story. The bag was delivered by courier at lunchtime the following day. Thankfully the precious cargo of outstanding Hunter Valley dessert wines were present and entirely intact.

[wastedlife]

A few times that stick in the mind.

Last time in 2014, when I had already decided to go and see a mate in Duesseldorf for the weekend (late summer), and then got a work trip in Sweden for the week after. Checked bag through, flight from DUS arrived 10 minutes early into LHR, flight to ARN left half an hour late, 3h50m total transfer time, BA didn’t manage to make the transfer. So I turned up to the office in shorts, trainers and bright green hoody on Monday morning.

2010, BA just didn’t bother loading my bag on a straight forward flight LHR – GIG – or indeed on that evening’s flight to GRU to make a connection; after all, a bit of initiative would have been far too much like hard work. Turned up after another 48 hours and $200 of new pants and T-shirts.

2005 – didn’t make a flight to PIT on Delta at JFK T3. Only one flight a day, so turned up 24 hours later, walked into the terminal arrivals area and my bag was first off. Client appreciated the fact I was at least wearing tracky bottoms rather than shorts.

1989 – getting home from UIO on PanAm via Barranquilla and Miami and going straight back to boarding school. Neither mine or my brother’s bags made it the same day we did, but did the next day.

Equally, I’m amazed that my bag has made it on some of the routes/connections I’ve taken. Getting back to LHR from La Paz on AeroSur and BA via Cochabamba, Viru Viru (change of plane) and then Sao Paulo (change of airline) I was convinced I was never going to see my luggage again, but it made it.

[Author]

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