Delta Airlines Uber-Fail
It’s been a little while since I posted an update. That’s because DH and I took a nice relaxing trip to Arkansas to visit my family for Christmas. Sure… it was reeeeaaaaal relaxing. NOT. And it’s all thanks to Delta Airline’s über-fail.
December 22, 2009: Leaving Dulles Airport
We were all scheduled to leave out of Dulles at 5:30am. That means that we needed to be at the airport by 3:30am. That meant that sleep was a moot point. We were running late the morning of our flight and ended up at the airport by about 4:00am, still should have been plenty of time to meet the gate. That was until we saw the mass chaos at the Delta check-in counter. There was nearly a riot. Literally.
My father took matters into his own hands rather than wait around for the singular ticket agent who was available to produce boarding passes for the throngs of travelers. He used the ticket kiosk. Did you know that you can have your boarding passes printed and check your baggage there? Well, you can. At least, you can start the process. We all had a bag so things were pretty simple. He flagged down the one ticket agent lady and pointed to the bag tags that were printing out. She looked at all our IDs, whipped those bag tags onto our baggage and sent us off to TSA to drop off the bags. We were on our way to the gate, things were looking good.
Somewhere between 7-8 hours later we finally land in Little Rock, Arkansas. We all head down the terminal to the baggage claim. The bags start coming off… 1… 2… 3… and then nothing. My bag arrived, my mom’s bag arrived, dad’s bag was there but we were missing DH’s bag. DH’s bag also happened to contain all of my make-up, my miracle hairdryer, and my wonderful Gentle Souls knee-high boots (i.e., my only dress shoes that I had brought with me). That of course is in addition to the obvious, all of DH’s stuff… clothes… toiletries… shoes… etc.
“No problem,” says Dad and asks mom for the bag tags so that he can get the bag number and find out what happened to the bag. Flipping through the bag tags we have, Jean… Whitney… Steve (which was really on my dad’s bag)… and Esmerelda Murphy? Who, in God’s green Earth, is Esmerelda Murphy??? And how on EARTH did we get her bag tag?
Now, it would be a great deal less upsetting if Esmerelda Murphy’s travel plans had sent her to Little Rock, Arkansas as well but that was not the case. Instead, Esmerelda Murphy had her sight set on Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. So the only thing that we could assume was that DH’s bag was taking a nice Caribbean vacation while we hung out with family in the drenching rain of Arkansas.
What would have also have been less upsetting would have been if the Delta Airlines lost baggage representatives had admitted that the bag had gone to the wrong place. Instead, they were insisting that the bag never left Dulles airport. And here’s why: our bag tag (the one that said “Gary” on it) was never scanned. Clearly there was no reason for them to believe that DH’s bag had gone anywhere. And for just a moment, I wondered if TSA had mistaken my wonderful “super-model-hair-for-under-$35-hairdryer” for a bomb and had retained the suitcase. Of course that was not the case. No, what had happened is that no one ever had a bag tag that said “Gary” on it. And here’s why…
In the confusion that morning when there was almost a riot at the Delta Airlines ticket counter at Dulles airport, bag tags were being printed out. The singular ticket agent lady placed four bag tags on our luggage; one for me, one for my mom, one for Steve (mistakenly placed on Dad’s bag) and one for someone by the name Esmerelda Murphy. In our rush to get to the gate on time we rushed over to TSA and bade a very careless farewell to our bags as they went up on the conveyor belt into the X-Ray machine. Later on, but not that later on, Esmerelda Murphy checked in (we were probably standing next to her line even). The singular ticket agent lady said, “Here you go Ms. Murphy, I have your bags checked all the way through to Little Rock, Arkansas… have a nice flight!” To which Esmerelda said, “Oh no you don’t, I’m not going to Little Rock, Arkansas. I’m going to Santo Domingo!!!” The singular ticket agent lady looked at the bag tag, noticed it was wrong, took it off, printed a new Esmerelda Murphy bag tag and suddenly TWO bags are now going to Santo Domingo with the name Esmerelda Murphy; hers and ours.
Eventually we convinced someone that this was the real story and that it wasn’t that our bag just never made it on any airplane, let alone one going to the Caribbean.
December 23 – December 28: In Arkansas
Of course, being in Arkansas without your essentials is pretty bad. We made an emergency Wal-Mart run for DH and bought some clothes. We assumed (wrongly) that the bag would show up within a day or so. That’s what usually happens. So we bought clothes, toiletries, etc. I think that a small part of DH was excited to receive a whole new wardrobe. I, on the other hand, was freaking out since there wasn’t a Sephora anywhere near El Dorado, Arkansas. The night we arrived I hurried to the computer and placed a replacement order for all my make-up and skin-care products. I happily pressed send and was thankful that next-day air shipping was still at a discounted rate for Christmas. Because the order was so large their customer service representative called to confirm that I did indeed want to purchase so much stuff. I explained my plight (lost luggage taking unscheduled Caribbean vacation) and the customer service rep was so awesome, saying that he’d do whatever he could to make sure that my order got to me by December 24th (the last day before the holiday shipping blackout).
DH with his Wal-Mart emergency clothing and me with my last-minute make-up/skincare shipment were pretty happy the rest of the trip. Dad was plagued by people not answering the phones in Santo Domingo. When he did get someone on the phone the agents in lost luggage were either unavailable or promised to call back in 1 hour. Apparently 1 hour in Santo Domingo is exactly equal to three days.
My cousin and I considered FaceBook stalking Esmerelda Murphy (for about 8 minutes) just in case she had decided to depart the fix with my super expensive boots and fabulous make-up. Biggest problem was that there are two Esmerelda Murphy’s on FaceBook and we figured that it wasn’t really her fault that the luggage ended up going to the wrong place… FaceBook stalking is not recommended or endorsed by MyNeChimKi.
It was on our last day in Arkansas that Dad finally got someone to identify the luggage. Sure enough it had been sitting in unclaimed luggage the whole time. And they were planning on putting it on the next flight out to Dulles airport! In fact, the luggage was scheduled to beat us home by about an hour. I used my handy-dandy FlightTrack Pro to track the luggage’s progress.
December 29, 2009: Arriving at Dulles
Sadly, we arrived at Dulles airport after fantastic delays because of a snow storm in Texas (our pilots were stuck) to find that DH’s bag was not there. Likely it had decided that it rather liked the weather in Santo Domingo and had decided not to come home.
December 30, 2009 – January 4, 2010: Reclaiming what is rightfully ours
The next few days my father spent on nearly constant phone calls with Delta Airlines and the airport in Santo Domingo. He wanted to know where the bag was, why it hadn’t made it’s flight, and what the plan was to get it home. Most of the calls seemed to go literally no where. He got the famous “call back in an hour” speech again and again. I was starting to feel like I’d never see my hairdryer or my boots ever again. And as each day passed, DH realized more and more things that happened to be in his bag… like his iPhone charger.
January 2nd I called my parents to see what they were up to and my mom said in a little sing-song voice, “Guess what came to my house??!?” I had no clue. The lost luggage was the last thing in my mind. But as luck would have it, just about 20 minutes before a representative from Dulles airport had dropped of the missing bag on my parents’ doorstep. We decided to keep it a surprise and let DH think that he had a Christmas present that had just arrived, delinquently.
Oh his face when he saw that bag! It was like two long lost friends being reunited after not having seen each other for 20 years!! Oh and how I missed my hairdryer. It really is everything I said it was.
The only thing remaining was the amount of money that we spent while we were still on vacation to replace everything that we thought we’d never see again… or at least everything that we didn’t think we could live without while the powers-that-be worked out whether they’d be able to reunite us with our luggage. All totaled, we spent just under $420.00 on our essentials. Yes, I will admit that the majority of that was my make up. Hey, beauty ain’t cheap. But seeing as how it wasn’t our fault that we had to spend that money, I was hoping that we’d get some of it back. Delta has officially agreed to reimburse us $250.00 of that money. We’re waiting on a check. Of course, we won’t hold our breath though.
I chronicled the whole #lostluggage debacle on my Twitter account. If you’re particularly interested in reading my tweets in reverse chronological order, feel free to click here for the full list.
That sucks! I’m always scared of losing my luggage. Since flyers get two carry-ons (one laptop bag and one personal) I try to pack some necessities in one of them… just in case. So sorry to hear about the luggage loss though.
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Yeah, I’m normally a pretty savvy traveler like that. But this trip was a little different. I took my violin with me so that my grandparents (who will probably never come to Virginia again in this lifetime) could hear me play. The violin, needless to say, took up one of my carry-on items. And in order for the case to fit in the overhead compartment (because there was no way that thing was getting gate-checked, you would have had to pry it out of my cold dead fingers) it had to be a teeny-tiny little case. Not much fits in there other than the violin, two bows, and the smallest humidistat and hygrometer known to man-kind. There was no way that my makeup or my hairdryer was gonna fit in there. My other carry-on was my purse. And while it is an understatement to call it “generous” it would not fit my “essentials” without weighting me down too much. Thus is my sad sad story. Please wait a moment while I get out my violin and play it for myself!
I have family in El Dorado too, and I cannot imagine being stuck there with no luggage. Hope you get your boots back really soon!
This is why I REFUSE to check my bags! I have become the master of mini toiletries and rolled clothing because I do NOT want to deal with having a bag get lost.
The story about the bag sitting in unclaimed luggage makes me think of the time Alex and I went to Aruba, though. Alex loves checking his luggage, so he checked his large duffel bag on that trip. We got off the plane, met my mom, and then we waited… and waited… and waited for that damn bag. It never came out. But the reason it never came out was because it had somehow made its way to JFK BEFORE we did – on a flight from Aruba that left 2 hours before ours! The bag was sitting in the unclaimed luggage office, which was a relief, but also irritating because if we had known that we wouldn’t have been standing in front of the luggage carousel for 3o minutes like dummies.
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Thanks for your concern Melanie! The boots back safe and sound. Arrived on Jan 3.
But can you imagine trying to shop for replacements at the Mellor Park Mall?!
There’s something to be said for checked luggage. When we left out of Dulles it was a mad-house and everyone and their mother’s brother’s uncle was trying to get home (or where ever) for the holidays. And EVERYONE wanted to carry on their luggage. So they all had those roll-aboards that people love so much these days. Except if you’re traveling only half-way across the country people don’t realize that the overhead compartments aren’t really all that spacious. AND what’s worse is that no one wanted anything at their feet, so they were trying to store their roll-aboard AND their other item in the overhead compartments. I thought that I was going to see a fight break out near the back of the airplane at one point. People try to shove the hugest, most over-stuffed roll-aboards in those overhead compartments. The people in front of me actually took CLOTHING out of their bag, shoved it under the seat in front of them and then tried to stuff the bag in the overhead compartment. I mean please, people! There is such a thing as “gate-checking” for those things!
So, I’m cool with people bringing their clothes and stuff as carry-on luggage so long as they’re realistic and courteous of others. Gate-checking is perfectly safe and I wish more people would take advantage of it.
Wow, what a story. I have seen you talking about it on twitter and was meaning to ask for details. I can’t believe they didn’t reimburse you for more of the things you had to re-purchase!
And I’m so glad you got your hairdryer back …
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@Melissa I guess they figured since they got our bag back to us they had no reason to reimburse us for everything we bought! Actually their $250 was quite generous since their policy is only $125. But how can you expect to spend only $125 on clothes and essentials to last you 7 days???
Pretty much every time I’ve checked baggage and had a connecting flight, my luggage was lost.
I’m downright paranoid about it- staring at the tarmac hoping to actually see my bag make it onto the plane.
I’m impressed (though not really surprised since your fam is very airline savvy) at how much tracking you could do to find your bag. I always feel so helpless. Next time we lose one, I will call you first!!!
Whitney!!! That’s crazy, I love your stories though – I just see you reacting as this stuff is happening and think that you should really be in a tv show. My bag was lost only once. It was on the flight to Albany to take the New York Bar Exam, though, and it was the bag with all my books to study from – yikes! It arrived the next day and I passed so no harm done . . . except maybe the emotional trauma!