I had the most interesting experience with my bag being delayed, then trying to reach me and then being un-trackable for a few days.
It was all on British Airways but the original problem was caused by South African ground staff who dd not move my bag from a cancelled flight onto my replacement flight with 5 hours notice.
The flight cancellation:
My flight from Johannesburg to London via Abu Dhabi on Etihad had an issue, was cancelled (I will post on that issue later), and I ended up getting a flight on British Airways as a replacement instead.
My initial flight on Etihad was scheduled to fly at 10 am. By 2 pm there was no solution so I booked online with BA to fly at 7 pm that night.
I told the South African airways gate staff that I was changing flights, showed them my boarding pass and they said they would remove my bag (they had to remove everyone else’s bags within the hour) and transfer it to the BA flight.
https://www.britishairways.com/content/en/us/information/baggage-essentials/lost-and-damaged-baggage
Delayed bag:
I flew at 7 pm on the 15th, landed in London at 7 am on the 16th, went to the baggage carousel and waited. Of course my bag did not arrive.
I went to BA lost luggage, they tracked my bag and found that it was still in Johannesburg !
They said that it would fly on the 16th, landing on the 17th. They were very efficient and I enjoyed our interaction.
A report was put in, I got a tracking code and I entered my address which is near DFW in the USA. Why the US I hear you ask ?
Well I was only going to be in the UK for 2 days flying out on the 18th, and I was worried that I would be gone by the time my bag reached a UK address.
Tracking:
I tracked my bag using the code, saw that it landed on the 17th and so expected that it would fly to the US on the 17th or 18th.
Interestingly it was initially scheduled on a Virgin flight to DFW, I believe it was flight 5555. Strange but sure, codeshare exists.
Later that day I saw it was now scheduled to fly on the 18th, but on BA to Austin as British does not fly to DFW any more.
I was scheduled to fly on the 18th too so I thought, hey, if I can intercept the bag at Heathrow, perhaps it could fly on my flight.
The process for contacting Lost Luggage at Terminal 3 is rather efficient. There is a designated phone with a whole list of numbers for all airlines.
I contacted BA but alas they said the flight to Austin had left that morning.
I would have thought it would be easy from here. The flight would land in Austin on the 18th. Perhaps on the 19th it would be flown to DFW and then delivered to me on the 20th. Or perhaps the bag would be couriered to me on the 19th or the 20th.
Over the weekend of the 20th and 21st I continuously looked online using the code but it only showed LHR to AUS on the 18th.
On Monday 22nd it started saying there is a problem with finding my details and that got us worried.
So we decided to try and contact BA in Austin to see what had happened to the bag.
We couldn’t get through on the phone but eventually found an email address and so sent an email with all the details.
To the British Airways benefit they contacted us within a day of them receiving our email. They initially tried phoning my wife.
My first phone call from BA in Austin was at about 1pm on Tuesday 23rd. I was not able to answer initially and when I called the number back to speak to Mr Adderly there was no answer. This went on a few times that afternoon.
Then surprise, surprise ! At 5:30 pm on Tuesday 23rd my bag was delivered by courier.
I tried to contact BA in Austin to confirm that I had received my bag but on neither Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning was there an answer to my calls.
Contents:
The bag was 100% intact.
South African airports have a bad reputation for theft from bags and seeing as my bag had been in the airport baggage area for more than 24 hours I was convinced that items would be missing.
Everything was still inside. There wasn’t even a tag from customs or security to show that they had searched the bag.
Of course, as I said at the start this whole problem was not British Airways fault.
It was South African airports ground staff who did not get my bag onto my flight and so caused the whole knock on effect.
I am extremely grateful that my bag arrived intact with the gifts from South Africa for my family still present.
