Delayed/lost luggage: Anybody have experience?

[rumborak]

I got back from a Transatlantic trip on Tuesday, and not too surprisingly, my luggage did not arrive with me (I only had 15 minutes between flights and had to run through the airport).
I filled out a form with Swissport who handle these things, but it is now Thursday evening, and I have not heard anything about my luggage. The website I can supposedly check hasn't even acknowledged the existence of the luggage. Note that there've been two more flights since then on that route, so they had ample time to get the luggage over the ocean.

I filed a complaint with AirBerlin now and will try to get whatever EU law allows me to get here, because the handling is piss poor by AirBerlin.

Does anyone have experience with this kid of thing? I do know that filing the complaint within 7 days is important, so that should be taken care of. But I also expect that the airline will drag their feet as much as they can, and I don't want to give them the opportunity to weasel themselves out.

[Bruinsfan25]

When I flew back to the US from Finland on British Airways, I had 2 stops in Helsinki and London. My layovers were about an hour or so and my luggage didn't get on my last flight. Once I touched down in Boston and turned off airplane mode I immediately got an email telling me about the delay. Once I got through customs I went to the British Airways desk, told them what color my luggage was and the next morning it was at my door. They emailed me updates that night and the next morning when it arrived. Not sure if any of that helps other than to say it got to my house relatively quickly.

[Prog Snob]

I had an experience with lost luggage once. I was on a road trip to California. On the way back my friend and father picked me up at the bus station, but my bag was not on the bus. I went to the lost luggage area and as the employee walked through the doors to help me I could see my luggage passing on the carousel. I pointed to it and told him that was mine and he proceeded to tell me it wasn't. I know my bag. It's exceedingly distinct. Ten minutes later he came out with that bag and just looked at me. I said, "I thought  this wasn't mine." I proceeded to say this seven times until he got the hint and apologized. Jackass.

[Chino]

After getting delayed for nearly 14 hours in Florida, they stuck me on a first class seat (only seat open on the plane) to get me home. It was much appreciated, but my bags went to Washington for some reason. They somehow managed to get my luggage on my doorstep in about 16 hours. I was impressed.

[King Postwhore]

Boy do I have a long story.  I'll have to type it out tonight though.

[rumborak]

We're on day 3 without luggage now, and the status on the tracking website has changed to "ITEM LOCATED, PENDING CONFIRMATION". Absolutely unacceptable. What if Boston had not been my final destination?

[PB1]

I've literally never had lost luggage. Maybe you had something illegal/suspicous in your bag?

[rumborak]

Nope. How the delayed luggage came about is actually understandable in itself. My first connecting flight was delayed due to weather, so it actually touched down about 5 minutes after the flight to Boston was supposed to have taken off. They waited with that flight, but I had to run through the airport to catch it. They just didn't have time to get the luggage off the connecting flight and into the next plane.
So, that part to me is understandable. But, there've been now 3 flights of the same route since then, which means they had ample opportunity to put my luggage on a plane.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

I don't, but I do have experience locating mandolin strings in the middle of Austin.

[TempusVox]

BA recently lost a friends luggage (2 bags) for 6 days. She had one dress to wear for 6 days worth of meetings in London. 30 minutes before she was to depart the hotel for her return trip back to the US, her bags were delivered. When flying to the UK, I typically fly BA, or VA because horror stories such as these rarely happen with them.

[rumborak]

I finally got my luggage today, after 4 days. I have little hope I will get any compensation, the guy who dropped off the luggage said "yeah, we almost dropped AirBerlin from our list, they stopped paying their bills".

[Prog Snob]

Boy do I have a long story.  I'll have to type it out tonight though.

For all involved in reading it, can I proofread it first?