Today was the day that I experienced my first lost luggage incident with American Airlines.
I have had about 40 flights a year with American for the past 10 years so 400 flights without an incident is a great record.
I checked in my luggage for my flight to San Francisco about 2 and half hours before the flight.
This next line is important.
All during this time I received messages on my phone updating me on gate changes as well as the message that boarding has started.
All as normal so I boarded the flight and flew comfortably.
Landing at San Francisco I made my way to baggage carousel 5 to get my bag. I waited more than half an hour for the bags to start and then waited till they were all out before realizing that my bag was not there. Once all the bags for my flight were out I made my way to the baggage counter. The lady there said that there is a message on the app about my luggage being delayed. My phone was on silent as it should be on the plane so I did not notice the message.
I am not sure if this is the most effective way of reporting that a person’;s bag is missing. It wasted a lot of my time which would not have been wasted if I had known once the flight landed. The message on my phone was sent at 14h53 and I went to the baggage counter to report my bag at about 15h55 which is a full hour.
I would think that if a person has not filled in the form or reacted to the message in 10 minutes it should be sent again and again until they do.
Losing your bag is quite a major incident and the inconvenience is massive. Imagine if I had a connecting flight to Hawaii or Japan or somewhere like that
I filled in the details of my address and she said it will be delivered to my hotel later today.
I landed at 3, the flight the bag was on was flying at about 4 so it should have landed by about 7.
It is now after 9h15 in the evening and no sign of my bag yet.
This is my experience of having my bag miss the flight. I still haven’t heard from American why it missed the flight after being checked in on time.
Update:
I see there was an email at 7h18 this evening saying that my bag is out for delivery and will be delivered tomorrow.
2nd update:
So American finished ahead after the days events. They delivered my bag by 10h00 this evening so I have it before I need it in the morning.
