British Airways, help!

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Thu, 09/07/2006 7:38 AM | Opinion

My daughter, who's studying at INSEAD, Fountainbleau, flew from Jakarta back to Paris last week after traveling around and having a short vacation back home in Jakarta.

On Aug. 28, she took a flight from Jakarta to Singapore with Singapore Airlines, arriving at Changi Airport at around 7:50 p.m. She then boarded British Airways flight BA 0016 at 11:25 p.m. from Singapore to London. She arrived at London's Heathrow airport on Aug. 29 at 5:55 a.m, then transferred to flight BA 304 to Paris, which departed at 7:20 a.m. and arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport on the same day at 9:40 a.m.

After waiting for almost two hours at the baggage claim area at Terminal B (until all the BA304 baggage had been unloaded), her two big bags consisting of all her belongings were not to be seen.

She was only able to retrieve the small carry-on bag (containing only magazines and a jacket) that she checked in at Heathrow due to carry-on limitations. The two big bags had already been checked-in to the BA flight by the Changi Airport flight transit desk when she switched from SQ to BA in Singapore (also the transit time was about three hours, so they had plenty of time to do the baggage transfer).

After waiting to no avail, she talked to the BA baggage handling staff at CDG. They said the bags were possibly still in London and promised to send them to her address within one to three days (one of the staff said that baggage delay/loss has been a big problem for BA. Imagine, one of BA's own staff admitting this).

It's been more than a week now and she still has not received her bags. She tried to telephone the BA baggage handling staff at the CDG airport several times, but the line was never picked up. She tried tracking the status of her baggage online as advised by the staff, but the system kept showing that it was still tracing her bags, and was still unable to locate the bags. She tried calling BA customer relations in France. At first, they said their department does not handle calls related to baggage mishandling/loss, and also that the staff at the airport are too busy sorting out delayed/mishandled/lost baggage to pick up the telephone there.

I want to know what exactly has happened to my daughter's baggage.

LAURITZ KHOENG
Jakarta

Jenny

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