Bags, we don't need no stinking bags

So my bags were missing. As I checked in at Gatwick airport they weighed my board bag, 30kg. I had to pay the excess baggage fee, but I was expecting this so apart from the fact that my flight left in 30mins and I still had to negotiate the security check it wasn't too big a deal. So I had to go round to the ticket desk and pay for the bag before taking it over to the oversize baggage check in. My other bag was 20kg but due to the fact that it was a large backpack with straps hanging off it they still made me take it to oversize baggage check. So I rushed over to the ticket counter, paid the extra £25 and struggled over to the oversize baggae check.

There was a pile of about 10-15 bags there already and two guys sorta louging on them like they were on a tea break. I dumped my bags and told them that they were for the Charlotte flight in 30 minutes.

"Yeah, no problem"

"They will make the Charlotte flight, right?" as I was shoving them into place in a hurry

"Yeah, of course they will, don't worry about"

At this point they sort of turned away and looked like they were about to step outside for a smoke break. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed with their concern for my bags getting on the flighht. Oh well, there were plenty of people behind me trying to catch the same flight and I still had to get on the plane. As it was the flight waited for everyone, an extra hour, so surely the bags had made it on.

Fast forward to Charlotte, carousel A (for apple), baggage from the US Airways Flight 1495 from London Gatwick will be on carousel A, is spinning around without anymore bags on it. The baggage supervisors have just stacked up all the remaining bags for people to claim in a corner and announced that all the luggage from the plane has been unloaded. Great, my fears that the marx brothers oversize baggage handlers weren't up to the task are confirmed. Oh well, no time to contemplate it now, I've got a connection that leaves in 5 minutes.

Fast forward once again but this time to SF. "Yeah I just had a look out there and there's no boogie board bags, you may as well submit that claim and we'll deliver your bags to you when they arrive, probably tomorrow morning." Okay, it wasn't a boggie board bag, you have no clue where my bags are and they probably won't show up tomorrow morning because they'll be at least a day late since there is only one flight from Gatwick each day. My confidence in US Airways is not gaining, but what can you do.

So I call them up Friday morning. This gives them the chance to get the same set of flights I took and arrive in SF Thursday evening and they can deliever them to me in the afternoon. I call up the number for lost baggage claim. Is it a heartless machine that gives me number options? "Press 1 if your bags are lost, Press 2 if want to waste more time listening to a machine, Press 3 if you want to because you're never going to actually talk to someone in person so may as well press a button ...". No its not, I get to talk to Alex, and heartless machine with a name that uses voice recognition so I don't have number options, I just say my options. Unfortunately, Alex has to explain what options I might have which takes twice as long and pisses me off twice as much. My lost baggage claim number was TZTVVP, try that on for size Alex, Mr. Voice Recognition, "Tee, zee (American), Tee, vee, vee, pee". Yup he didn't get it. And at the end of it all what was his answer?

"The location of your bags is unknown at this time."

Great, not something like "Your bags accidently went to Timbuktu, we are currently working to get them to your destination in San Francisco." No, just a plain old, we have no fucking clue.

Well, trust mums to come to the rescue. "Lets go to the shop and buy you some socks and underware, if we start replacing your clothes, your bags are bound to show up right afterwards." So off down to the local shop, buy a few essentials and get back home. Not more than 30 minutes after I get home the phone rings, "US Airways delivery service, we have two bags for you that will be delivered today between 3:30 and 5:00". Result. Bags found, no thanks to Alex, and problems sorted. They even delivered them early, at 3:00.

So everything is all sorted now. My bags have arrived, I don't have to ask my examiners to re-read my thesis and provide their corrections again and I still have all my stuff, including sweetness. And guess what, I even got the bonus of writing this expectionaly long post on my blog. I wonder how many of you have actually read this whole thing. I think that will be the topic for my next post: posting really long posts that are quite good stories but written by an engineer who could make even the most entertaining story long and boring (note to self, tell everyone the lumberjack joke).