Wait… My Bag is Re-Flighted???
More Pleasure, More Business.
In this divided trip report
Part One: The Pleasure
- Part 1
- Two o’clock in the morning. I love this time of day. Honestly.
- The Cathay Pacific, American Airlines Lounges… and a five-hour delay
- AA87 London Heathrow to Chicago O’Hare International (Premium Economy)
- Crowne Plaza O’Hare
- A photographer’s paradise? The Central Camera Company
- Hyatt Regency O’Hare
- Airplane Art Extra: From the Balcony of the Hyatt Regency O’Hare
- Back to the Bunny, British Airways Lounge
- BA294 Chicago O’Hare to London Heathrow (World Traveller Plus)
- Wait. My Bag is Re-Flighted???
- Part 2
Wait. My Bag is Re-Flighted???
Getting off the plane from the back-end of T5B, I had some hope that everything had worked out, and I would be through in a reasonable amount of time, and in the lounge writing nicer things after a reasonable flight.
Of course, one has to navigate to Terminal 5 A first – that means taking the shuttle
To the shuttle!
A short ride later, I was deposited at Terminal 5 A – and it was time to clear the UK Border.
To the border
And a working ePassport machine too.
I cleared passport control without a problem and headed down to luggage claim. Luggage delivery from BA294 was… I’m going to be nice… slow – with the first bag appearing after 20 minutes. And then there was a further wait.
Uh oh.
Tum tee tum.
Umm… Yes… Well…
It was announced that luggage delivery from BA294 was completed. And I was one bag short of a party of two.
Bleeeeeeep.
I headed over to the baggage claim counters – which were woefully understaffed, with baggage claims taking time.
I seriously doubt it.
Within a minute of being seen too, I was informed by BA that my bag had been re-flighted, and instead of being loaded on BA294, it was loaded onto BA296 without any warning before departure or messaging on arrival.
Wonderful.
British Airways offered to redeliver it to Hamburg, whilst I had a to and fro with their twitter team. I was no longer in a comfortable territory – I was in serious omnishambles territory.
Why? My trousers and shirts were in my main suitcase, and the time I had been waiting in the queue to be seen too – meant I had zero chance to pop out of the airport, find Tesco Extra or Primark in Hownslow to get an alternative outfit, and zero time to do shopping when I landed in Hamburg, my options were shortening by the second for what to do next.
And yes, I could had packed my trousers and an shirt in the bag, but this is a simple point-to-point run with no connections – it should had been on that flight, end of matter.
I filled in my lost luggage report and it got logged into WorldTracer (the SITA baggage tracing system that British Airways use). That all done, I was clear to head out of the secure area via customs, and through into the public area.
With me out, I had to re-plan my luggage and work out what was travelling where.
If I landed at 6:15 in the morning, it wasn’t until 8:30 in the morning I exited the secure area.
Peepette: Ooh. I get a free trip to Hamburg?
I didn’t intend to take my tripod and stand bag to Hamburg (and normally, I’d leave my big suitcase behind… but that would be travelling with me to Hamburg if I liked it or not).
And I had more than a few problems to resolve with a missing bag…
That’s where we leave part 1 of this omnishambles. Join me in Part two of this adventure, where we go from pleasure to business.
And maybe some more omnishambles. Because we can never have enough of those in a Kevin Trip Report.
Starting Next Week: Part 2 – Onto Business.
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