Baggage blunder blues
Lost, damaged or delayed baggage can ruin a dream getaway. looks at what rights travellers have.
Waiting around the baggage carousel serves as a microcosm of traveller stereotypes: suited and booted businessmen grab their perfectly packed suitcases, blearyeyed backpackers easily find their badge-laden belongings among a sea of black, families bicker as little Madison rams her Trunki into my shins. And finally the irate passenger who seems to be missing their bags, teetering on the edge of a meltdown, with only a barcode receipt and a bored staff member to bring them back from the brink.
On July 25, Kiwis Dennis Van Der Maas and Brenda Williams embodied that stereotype after Lufthansa lost their luggage between Venice and Amsterdam. Dennis described their 12-day, $20,000 Baltic cruise turning into ‘‘the holiday from hell’’.
They landed in Amsterdam but their cruise was embarking that afternoon so the bag handling contractor could not simply send the delayed luggage to their hotel – as it would be drifting off the coast of the Netherlands. Promises were made by Lufthansa staff and baggage handlers Aviapartners for the reunification to occur when the boat next docked.
Nothing came. Every morning for nearly two weeks, while other guests had excursions in Helsinki and Copenhagen, Dennis and Brenda awaited luggage that never arrived. Every day Dennis called Lufthansa and Aviapartners: ‘‘Their promises turned out to be blatant lies. We didn’t get our bags back until our return to New Zealand, 19 days after the bags were delayed.’’
Dennis later found out that despite the continued promises, the bags were sent back to Auckland on July 29 and Lufthansa saw that as case closed.
Once home, the airline offered to pay half the cost of replacement items,