Tinkies, underwear stolen from family’s luggage
A DURBAN family travelling to India recently, said 10 of their suitcases were tampered with, and items including Tinkies (sponge cake) and new underwear were stolen.
The thief had even stuffed the empty Tinkies’ wrappers back into the suitcase.
Raksha Ramanund and her family of six adults and a child, departed from Durban to Ahmedabad on March 11. They were set to return home on April 4.
She said they suspected their bags had been tampered with during their 12-hour layover at Doha Airport in Qatar.
On their arrival in India, the family found the zips on all the bags had been broken.
“When we opened our bags, we found the items were missing. They even ate our Tinkies and left the wrappers back in the bag. They also stole our chocolates which we had carried for friends. A watch, new underwear and Tshirts
were also stolen,” Ramanund said.
She said they immediately alerted the airport authorities who “were extremely unhelpful”.
“We had made the discovery when we had just stepped out of the airport – it was about five seconds later. The person we spoke to refused to write a report because she said we had already exited the airport. Initially, we were upset about it, especially as all our things had been tampered with. It did dampen our spirits but we were on holiday and did not want to cry over spilled milk.”
She said her family were frequent travellers, but this had been the first time they had flown Qatar airlines.
“To add to our woes, the airline changed our departure date from India without our knowledge and we had to cut our trip short by a day. We logged on to the website to check our flights and we saw a notification to accept changes to our flight – an earlier departure date (April 2).”
Ramanund said if they had not gone on to the website, they would have missed their flight home. She claimed their baby stroller, which they had carried with them on their travels, did not return to South Africa.
Ramanund said they had learnt a valuable lesson from this ordeal, and would ensure their bags were wrapped in plastic on their next trip.
Private investigator, Mike Bolhuis from Specialised Security Services, said he had noticed an increase in theft complaints from air travellers.
He said airlines tried to curb theft by urging travellers to carry their valuables in their hand luggage.
Bolhuis said travellers often carried expensive clothing and other valuables on overseas trips, which he suggested people should reconsider due to the increase in theft.
“Take your normal clothes, the cheaper stuff. Don’t keep anything valuable in your main suitcases. Don’t fly with expensive jewellery or anything on your person that would draw attention. Pickpocketing is one of the biggest crimes at airports globally.
“Also, don’t be penny wise and pound foolish. Never fly without insurance. If you carry a bag that costs R5 000, insure it. If you have main luggage that costs a lot of money, then insure it. It is worth it.”
Qatar Airways had not responded to questions posed by POST at the time of publication.