Dell employee's luggage lands up with another airline. After 15 days of running from pillar to post, he uses his sources to find it
Dell employee's luggage lands upu00a0 with another airline. After 15 days of running from pillar to post, he uses his sources to find itu00a0
What would you do if you notice your luggage is missing at the airport? You will contact the airline you have travelled with and ask them to locate it for you. But Lajpat Nagar resident Sunil Joshi (name changed) was in for a rude shock when his luggage went missing at the airport.
Representative PicOn December 24 last year, Joshi was coming back to Delhi from Mumbai on board Indigo airlines flight 6E182 when he noticed his luggage was missing at the Delhi airport.
He filed a complaint with the airline and was told that his luggage will be delivered within 48 hours. Nothing however happened and for next 15 days Joshi faced a harrowing time as the airline officials told him that his luggage was untraceable and they will compensate him according to the weight of the luggage.
"I kept calling the customer care and they were clueless about my luggage. As I was on an official trip, I was carrying important papers and airline was not at all ready to help. My calls were used to be kept on hold for long but all in vain. I even sent a written complaint to the Indigo airline officials but nothing happened," lamented Joshi.
The airline then told Joshi that they will pay him Rs 2,000, for the baggage which he declined. "I wanted my bag not compensation. They were paying me Rs 2,000 which was not even the cost of my bag. My luggage included my clothes, accessories and official document so I declined to take compensation," said Joshi.
He then decided to peruse the case himself, "As per the AirPort Authority of India, the Delhi-Mumbai flight and luggage transaction is on fully automated system so I thought that the airline has not made full effort to trace the missing Luggage. So I approached one of my friends who was working with the Airport Authority of India who started searching of my bag.u00a0
Thankfully, the bag was found with the SpiceJet officials at Mumbai Airport. It has been identified and proved that it belongs to us. SpiceJet asked about the detail of the bag and luckily my bag had the tag on it of the hotel in which I was staying in Mumbai. The airlines also checked the detail with the hotel and confirmed us that the bag is found," Joshi said.
As per the DGCA rules the passengers are entitled for a compensation to the tune of Rs 4,000 if their baggage was lost in the country.
"Many passengers are not aware of it. Suppose, if a baggage is lost in the aircraft, the passenger can approach the counter set up by the Airport Authority of India (at the airport) who in turn will inform the Airline officials. After verification, the airline has to provide a compensation of Rs 4,000 for a lost baggage", said an industry expert.
However, sources in the industry point out that in most of the cases, the airlines make excuses and even if the requisite formalities are completed by the passenger, the airlines try to settle the cases with petty amount.u00a0 "I came from Europe in November on British Airways.
In the midway the airline lost my baggage. I did not have anything with me as I was carrying only a small bag and all my belonging were there in the baggage. They only offered me $10 to settle the case," said, Rakesh Kumar (name changed), who later flew back to Paris.
Industry experts say that the problem is growing day by day as the airlines as well as airport operators do not take the cases properly.u00a0 "Sometimes it is mishandled by the airports but mainly airlines are culprits in this case. Loaders do not load or offload the baggage properly. Sometimes, airlines to reduce the weight in aircraft put the baggage on other flights. Due to this it gets misplaced," said, informed sources at the
airport.
| Luggage complaints top the list |
| Data collected over last six months reveal that the missing baggage complaints top the list of complaints with the airlines in the country.
According to Civil Aviation ministry's data, the number of baggage related complaints in the month of December was 28.9 percent of total complaints, in November 26.0 percent of the complaints, October 18.7 percent, September 17.4 percent and in August it was 22.0 percent of the total. "Of all the complaints, baggage misplacement and mishandling complaints top the chart.u00a0 It needs to be looked into. The problem is not only with a single airline, all the airlines are the culprits,' said a ministry official. |
