Between being up in the air and being hit by reality on the ground
Unlike the narrow options of domestic traveling, international travelers enjoy an array of airlines to choose from. I personally had a pleasant experience with many, such as Lufthansa, JetBlue, Singapore and Emirates Airlines. Then again, thanks to a few other airlines, my last summer trip was not as pleasant as I had hoped it to be.
In a trip to the United States with my family, we booked with Air-France. It was a round trip via Paris and both ways everything seemed to be perfect. Did I press my luck? I’ll come back to that later.
To hop between states of America, we took the American Airlines. Be it bad weather or bad luck, a storm started right after we checked-in. Expectedly, an hour delay was announced but only thirty minutes after the scheduled boarding time. An hour later we boarded and as normal, everybody was settled in thirty minutes and the doors were closed. Another thirty minutes passed by and there were no signs of take off. As symptoms of inconvenience started to become more visible and louder, the captain made the long awaited announcement notifying passengers that another hour is expected before the plane can take off due to bad weather conditions. Later another announcement was made to ask for our patience as one more hour is needed. To sum it all up, till that point the total delay was three hours and thirty minutes all together for a three hour flight. Do I blame the airlines for Mother Nature? Of course not, in fact I bow in respect for their cautionary measures. However, do I blame them for calling for boarding before the skies were clear enough? Absolutely. Do I blame them for not having the thoughtfulness to give out snacks throughout the entire delayed trip? I do. As a matter of fact, a flight attendant was walking through the isle offering water during the waiting time and just a few rows before she could reach us she ran out of water and simply decided not to fetch more and resume her act of kindness. Lastly, the baggage arrived soaked and that was the cherry on top of the cake.
Turns out I did press my luck! As we arrived back home via Air-France, and from between all our five baggage pieces, the most important and heaviest bag with a month’s shopping did not make it. We were the last of our trip’s passengers to leave the airport that night after customer services informed us that the bag is safe at Charles De Gaulle Airport and that we should be expecting it with the next flight two days later. With the reassuring response, we happily and finally went home. As the next flight arrived, the bag did not show up and they asked us to be patient and wait for the next one again two days later. Ten days of patience and hope went by with no signs of my beloved bag arriving. They simply gave me an insurance claim where I must write the description of all items in the 30 kg very bright orange bag with prices and attach supporting receipts!
I humbly ask: How am I supposed to remember every single item in the lost luggage and their prices? And if I did, what makes them assume I would still be holding on to the receipts? What about the hours I took out of family time to shop, who will compensate my family for that? What about the emotional damage, the stress and the frustration, Let alone the expense of a whole month’s trip that ended in disappointment?
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@tamadoralyami
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