BAGS OF FUN

On a trip from Atlanta to Miami in December, American Airlines lost both my checked bags. I had a connecting flight back to the UK and was told they would arrive in London the next day but, 24 hours later, I’d heard nothing. I contacted AA and they told me the bags were still in Atlanta but they couldn’t tell me anymore, so I should call back tomorrow. I then called the Heathrow number on their website, which directed me back to the previous person. When I asked to be connected to AA at Heathrow, I was told this was not possible. When I asked if someone could call me back with an update, I was told this was not possible either, and I would have to call myself. I finally managed to log on to the online system, which said both bags had arrived in the UK. I had not heard from AA, so I called and they said that one bag was in London but the other was still in Atlanta, and that the ground-handling company would call to arrange a time to deliver within the next hour.

After waiting in for nearly four hours (with no call), one bag arrived. I rang the next day for an update on the second bag and was told to contact the central baggage team in the US, which is closed at weekends (it was a Saturday). On Monday (my 12th call), I was told to ring central baggage again, who said they still had no idea where it was. After asking how this was possible, I was rudely told that they do not track the bags; they are not Fedex or UPS.

I called the European number and said I would not get off the phone until they had spoken to someone at Heathrow. After holding for nearly 47 minutes, they told me that my bag had arrived at Heathrow three days ago, and they did not know why no one had contacted me. This bag had a lot of Christmas gifts in it, so you can imagine the stress caused by such useless service. Peter Tzelepis, London

AMERICAN AIRLINES REPLIES: We regret that Mr Tzelepis’ experience fell short of our usual high standards. While misconnecting baggage is rare, this can occasionally happen and we do our utmost to prevent any such misconnects. Delayed baggage is a frustrating situation for customers, and we do our best to return items in the shortest possible time. We understand that the delay Mr Tzelepis experienced waiting for his bags to be delivered was unacceptable, but we are pleased to confirm that the second bag was returned on December 21 in time for Christmas. A specialist from our customer relations team has been in touch to apologise, process any interim expenses accumulated and facilitate any additional warranted compensation.