Caro: We flew into Gatwick on Tuesday afternoon. We met a nice American chap on the flight and since he needed to get to Heathrow (close-ish to Teddington) we offered to save him from the public bus and drop him at Terminal 5 on our way back to Tim’s parents’ place.
Tim was on the phone arranging this with our driver and standing at the far end of the carousel when I noticed our bags chugging along together. I pointed them out to Tim and walked towards him. But when I got to him, only one bag was on the carousel. The other was nowhere to be seen.
It appeared that someone had stolen our bag (I’ve never actually heard of that happening before – but I figured anything’s possible). Anyway, I was scurrying around the baggage hall looking for the culprit when I noticed one of our bags emerging from the chute. I decided I must have been imagining things. So we took the second bag and made our way home.
It was only when we unpacked the car that we realised that we’d brought someone else’s, identical bag home instead of mine. Cue exasperation, ineffective calls to the airline, an hour drive to Gatwick to return the wrong bag – hoping that my bag would be there. Of course it wasn’t. And the chap who had my bag was not answering his phone.
It turned out he’d collected my bag from the carousel, walked out and checked onto an onward flight to Lisbon! This I ascertained only when I chased the airline on Wednesday afternoon (no update from the airline or their baggage contractor at any stage).
The bag was returned on a flight that arrived into London at 22.30 on Wednesday. On both Wednesday evening and Thursday morning I notified Easyjet (their contractor Menzies) that we would drive to Gatwick to collect the bag. This was important because I needed it ASAP to get organised for our trip to Africa this weekend plus we no longer live at the address they had on their system from when the flights were booked! The experiences we’d had to date were enough for me to understand that the ability to sucessfully execute a change-of-address and get it right was probably beyond the capability of their clearly ineffective system. Menzies noted and confirmed we were coming for the bag. Yet, (and you can see where this is headed) – when we got to Gatwick 90 minutes later at 10am (after another hour long drive) – I was told that the bag (a) had been despatched to me; and (b) would not arrive until the following day i.e. Friday. When I expressed the view that this wasn’t acceptable I was told I could wait till three hours for the bag to be returned to the airport.
Talk about appalling customer service and ineffective systems!
Anyway, to cut to the chase, we reached a position where the bag was delivered back to the airport within 30 minutes. So we got there in the end! But not without a lot of phone calls, two 2-hour round trips to Gatwick, more time dealing with incompetents than anyone should endure in a lifetime and a whole lot of angst.
Confession – Yes, Tim and I do have identical, his and hers bags. Think what you will.
