Wednesday 1 February 2012

Lost in Transit


So I hadn’t been home in a few months and when I did manage some free time, I dumped some clothes in a suitcase, filled it with a lot of gifts for family and friends and with big plans of taking a lot of lovely photographs in a city that will always be home, I found myself standing with my heart in my hand by the luggage belt of the Kolkata Domestic Airport. It had been at least half an hour, and one by one all my fellow Jet Airways passengers collected their bags and “fragiles” while I stood there hoping against hope that mine would be just around the corner. But it never came and I slowly became convinced that it was time I screamed at someone. My baby, my camera was in there! If this should ever happen to you, do not do what I did instantly, hurl abuses at the ground crew or throw things at them (it’s a bad idea especially if you have sharp objects in your hand) and you might also want to refrain from peeing in your pants (use the nearest washroom instead, it’s less embarrassing). Try skipping these natural human reactions to save yourself the time and the adrenaline and simply move ahead with the next steps.

1.       Stalk the baggage office for a while, try listening in on their hushed conversations and see if they sound nervous about lost baggage. This way you’ll get a clearer idea of the real situation at hand instead of buying all the diabetic encouragements that they might feed you with when you confront them.

2.       Storm into the office and demand an explanation, don’t threaten to sue just yet.

3.       You might have to spend some time while the nice lady makes phone calls trying to locate your baggage, feel free to make a few comments about your super-precious suitcase and its contents while she makes the calls.

4.       If they are unable to trace it still, you will be required to fill up a form

5.       Remember to jot down the make and colour of your bag and any identification marks that there might be on it. You will also need to recall as many things as you can remember of its contents. They might not be willing to note down something expensive (for instance my camera) for some apparent security reason; which could mean that it could get stolen or could be used by a suicide bomber (I’m guessing).

6.       Have an address handy that they could deliver it to, when and if found.


7.       Walk out in a huff and act angry, in fact try coming up with a few harsh comments while filling up the form (better chances of them remembering you). Don’t forget to take with you their toll-free helpline number and your reference id.

According to procedure, your baggage will not be declared lost (after which you are eligible for compensation) till two weeks of them making an effort to look for it since the day you, no, they lost it. Mine was a happy ending, that is to say that they found my suitcase (it had never even gotten loaded into the plane when it took off from Bombay) and it was delivered to my home in four days, after four days of 25 phone calls made to the helpline (eventually from a few different phone numbers).

Moral of the story:
1.       Take the extra effort to attach a large tag to your bags with the origin and destination places, lest they assume that the bag had taken a walk to the airport on its own, I’m assuming they thought my suitcase had come to chill.


2.       Also, make some kind of identification mark for easy recognition (however throwing it in front of a moving truck will make it unique but might render it useless).

Nonetheless, I shouldn’t be complaining; I got my bag back with nothing missing. But I am. 

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