Airline Baggage Handling

Once again, I'm sitting in Brisbane and my luggage is *somewhere*. After spending the last day trying to deal with the airline baggage folk, I'm struck by the unrealistic world in which they seem to live.

I was on an Alaska flight from Seattle to LAX on Wednesday night, then connecting with a Qantas flight to Brisbane. Previously when I've had a bag missing, they already know it's missing by the time you land and I've been handed a note that asks me to see the baggage services folk. This time, the Qantas people didn't think my bag was missing because the lady at Qantas in LA, entered my bag count as zero, instead of one. That meant I got to spend an hour waiting for the bag to come off, when it wasn't going to. So, they don't actually know where it is at all.

When I spoke to the baggage services people in Brisbane, they said they had no advice on it, that it would probably be on tomorrow's flight and that they'd get a list of bags around 5pm and to call them after 6pm. All sounded good. However, my bag wasn't on the list at 5pm and the phone number they gave me to call was simply diverted to an answering service from 6pm till they "closed" at 9pm. That service promised that if you left a number, they'd call, which of course they didn't. And, just to make it more entertaining, there wasn't another flight today anyway. <sigh>

They told me today that they'd send a TELEX to LA to ask about it. I didn't know anyone still used TELEX.

So, today I thought I'd try my luck at calling Alaska Airlines instead. They have a phone number for you to call. The good part is that is only operates 10am - 3pm Monday to Friday. How does anyone get to work those hours?

At least they had an email address I could write to, so I did. I just got the automated response that told me their average turnaround time for responding to emails was seven weeks. It also mentioned that you get a quicker response by phoning. But of course, they won't take a call till Tuesday next week, my time. <double-sigh>

While reading the baggage claim details on their site, I also noticed that it's your fault if anything goes missing if you haven't locked your bag. That's pretty funny given the signs all over the airport telling you that you *mustn't* lock your bag.