A US flyer tracked his lost luggage back to London. American said go pick it up from the airport.

[Eugene]

Source: Business Insider

A US flyer tracked his lost luggage back to London and was told by American to go pick it up from the airport — even though he was 4,000 miles away in North Carolina

Grace Dean
Wed, July 20, 2022 at 8:41 AM·4 min read

The day after he got home from a trip to Europe, North Carolina native Jamie O'Grady got a text from a stranger saying he'd just found his missing luggage lying in baggage reclaim at London Heathrow.

Speaking to Insider, O'Grady said he told American Airlines about the text, only for the airline to ask him to collect the bag himself, even though he was 4,000 miles away.

O'Grady flew from Faro, Portugal on July 9 and arrived in Raleigh, North Carolina the next day following a layover at Heathrow. He'd booked the flights through American Airlines, though the first leg of the flight appears to have been operated as a codeshare with Finnair.

-snip-

Link to tweet

In April, roughly one in every 140 bags on flights operated by American Airlines or its branded codeshare partners were mishandled, according to a report by the US Department of Transport.

This is higher than the proportion of bags mishandled by Southwest, Delta, and United, and is also considerably higher than the proportion of American Airlines bags mishandled in April 2021.

-snip-

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/us-flyer-tracked-lost-luggage-124130960.html

[DFW]

1. American Airlines is THE worst in customer service

I avoid them like the plague if at all possible, and out of Dallas, that is no mean feat.

[hlthe2b]

3. That has long been my experience.

[we can do it]

8. Just awful. Let us know in middle of night they stranded us in Seattle.

We we’re checked in, had dropped car off.

[hlthe2b]

2. For a very long time I have only used carry-on or if I HAVE to carry more for a long stay, I ship it

via UPS or FEDEX. I very very rarely do the latter and it is costly, but the headaches are just not worth it. It is an art to pack all you need (especially for business and especially for women who can't wear the same suit every day) into carry-on luggage but it can be done. Sometimes I just buy extra clothing wherever I go and if I like it well enough, ship it home. If not, I donate it.

It is unconscionable that customer service and baggage handling for the airlines is this bad, but without staff, I guess I can't be surprised. To the extent it represents a "don't care" attitude more than mere understaffing, I can't say, but given the customer service decline at nearly every other big company in recent years, I'd guess it is a lot of the former.

[2naSalit]

4. Haven't flown with thme in decades...

I didn't know they were still operating!

[mitch96]

5. I wonder if you can use Apple Air Tags and stick one in your luggage to track it?...

I know Alaska Air is doing someting similar..
m

[Historic NY]

6. Well I can see now I have advance time to book a new airline to Europe next year

I think PLAY the Icelandic airline offers better options. Then we have Norse coming in too.

The Stewart service is expected to launch in June and will initially fly into Iceland and connect to European cities, eventually including Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Goteborg, Keflavik, London, Paris, Stavanger, Stuttgart, and Trondheim.

Recently, Norse Airways, another startup, announces plans to fly between Stewart and Norway.

My last trip I have to fly to Philagelphia to take American w/a British crew, and then onto Heathrow and from Heathrow to Charles De Gaulle Paris to Brussels. This was all from my local airport.

It was crazy way to travel, we still have a 1hrs 1/2 ride by car to the final destination

[lark]

7. American Airlines has been the worst of the worst for at least 20 years.

20 years ago my dear old mom went to Dallas, TX to see here family. Both of her big suitcases were lost. She got the smaller one back about 3 weeks later, they managed to find it. They never found her big bag that contained her good clothes, like her suits and jackets. Mom was quite elderly by then, think she was 85, and hated buying clothes and was very particular about her rules for dressing, No big or pointed collars allowed, must be bright colors, can't hang or open much below collalrbone, had to fit at waist (she had a tiny waist) and not be tight in hips or butt (she was very self conscious about thinking she had a big butt) etc. etc. And she was a child of the depression, was so poor, so HATED spending $$ - even if it was my sister or I spending $$ she still hated it and tried to talk us out of it.
Her losing her 1 suitcase caused my sister and I to waste soooo much time trying to find her suitable clothes that she liked and that fit.

I have avoided this airline like the plague ever since. They are horrible!