A Swiss International Air Lines plane arrived at its destination without a single checked bag onboard.
The plane arrived in Bilbao, Spain, on Saturday without any of the passengers’ checked bags. The bags were left behind in Zurich, Switzerland, Kavin Ampalam, a spokesperson for Swiss, told the news agency AFP.
Passengers waited in vain for more than two hours at a conveyor belt for their suitcases, according to the Swiss-German newspaper The Blick.
“There was a shortage of ground staff,” Ampalam told AFP. Ampalam said the flight departed without its 111 passengers’ suitcases “for operational reasons,” as the plane had to fly another set of passengers from Bilbao to Zurich Airport before it closed. Swiss was operating the flight on behalf of Edelweiss Air, Ampalam said.
Ampalam said the flight crew waited for “one hour and 16 minutes” for the ground staff to load the bags onto the plane before deciding to fly to Bilbao without them.
“We understand the situation is not favourable for the people involved, and of course we regret the inconvenience,” Ampalam told AFP.
Several passengers said the pilot in charge of the flight was apologetic over the delayed departure, but never mentioned leaving their bags in Zurich, according to Blick’s report.
This is what bugs me more than anything. They “know” my bag didn’t make the flight but instead of sending me a message (to the email / phone number I already gave them) they make me wait two hours on the ground after a one hour flight.
Forget the contact details, captian could have informed it at any point during the flight but nope, can’t cause any problems that may affect their schedule.
The actual right response should have been not to depart. Or cancel the flight. What are 111 passengers going to do without their luggage at the destination?!
That’s not entirely fair. I would rather arrive at my location without luggage than not at all. I can always get some cheap shirts and shorts or whatever at my destination. I can’t get my hotel, and other prepaid scheduled expenses fees back.
Read the article if they had not taken off at that time they wouldn’t have made the return flight in time (Zurich airport has no landings past midnight). So not flying means that 111 people would not make it to Bilbao (without their bags) and a similar amount of people wouldn’t make it to Zurich (with their bags).
Personally, I would rather take the flight and get my bag a day or two later. Annoying af yes but at least you get some compensation to get some clothes.
If half the people are flying home it’s not even that big of a problem.
Exactly. If they’d have just said outright “look, we fucked up, your bags aren’t here, go to your hotels, and we’ll have them sent on tomorrow”, people would have been annoyed but could at least have enjoyed their holidays.
The complete lack of communication from transport companies is beyond maddening. And it’s the same everywhere. When my train is “delayed”, I’ve no idea if that’s 5 minutes away or if it’s an inferno lying on its side on an embankment. The automated announcements will be the same either way.
Checking bags is bullshit.
Let some high school dropout from the TSA search your bags while you get foot fungus.
Ahhh, finally some truly important world news.
“Of course we regret the inconvenience” is so disingenuous. Just shows how procedural this response was. To me, it reads as “We regret the inconvenience because we have to, not because we actually give a shit.”
Some of you may be extremely inconvenienced, but that is a sacrifice we are willing to make.
Once they minimize it as “the inconvenience”, I’m already hopping mad. They don’t know how badly I wanted the thing we agreed to before money changed hands. They act like the consumer surplus of the trade is zero; that all you’ve lost is some pittance and not the opportunity to solve your problem in a better way.
They won’t say “our mistake” or “our choice” because that would be actually owning their own fuckup.
End all airline subsidies.
There is no such thing as a labor shortage. There is only a wage shortage caused by the airline. Stop pushing costs down to the point you can’t operate, you twats.
I can’t recall the last time I traveled with checked luggage. It has its disadvantages, for sure, but flying is a terrible enough experience without having to stand in line waiting to check luggage, and then standing around waiting for it to (maybe) appear on a conveyor belt.
I almost never checked bags prior to having a child but there’s been plenty of times where the airline checked my bags at the gate because the overheads were full so I quickly learned it’s something you can’t count on.
My wife and I just flew with 2 kids and no checked bags. Yes, it was a pain to manage 4 carry-ons and 4 personal bags, but it was manageable, and it beat the hell out of paying another $200 to have those 4 bags checked.
Edit: They’re 6 and 8 years old. It’s impossible for me to say whether it would have been possible when they were younger, as my 8-year-old is only recently past her medical issues that necessitated considerable additional luggage – so we just didn’t fly.
I went to Disney for a week with my 1 year old and wife. We used 2 carry one and a personal bag.
I refuse to take checked bags because I travel off and on for work and I’ve been burned too many times with checked bags.
It’s pretty easy to pull off if you just do things like sleep in the clothes you plan on wearing the next day or only bringing enough diapers and wipes for the plane and buying a weeks supply at your destination.
Your didn’t have a car seat with you? I can see getting away without a stroller if you use a carrier but no car seat isn’t an option.
Too risky depending on your destination. What if there is a plane delay, what if there is no food for your baby, what if they don’t sell the food your baby is used to etc etc. usually just the baby stuff takes a while checkin luggage, not to mention the stroller.
Great when you can manage it, they often take my carry on luggage from me and insist on checking it. Had musical instruments forcibly checked like that against written policy and paid-for permissions several times now.
Also, some people like owning scissors. Or just have kids and need the extra luggage space.
Don’t forget wheelchairs.
You are forced to check what is essentially your legs that in almost all cases is personalised for your specific needs (so you can’t just sub in a generic chair) and often costs thousands if not tens of thousands, yet airlines lose or damage hundreds of wheelchairs and scooters every month in the US alone.
I only check bags, for the exact same reason. I realized that some of my biggest stressors in traveling were getting everything to fit on a carryon-plus-backpack, and worrying about getting room in the overhead compartment. I’d rather stand around a carousel for fifteen minutes before walking to grab an uber than have to deal with that. I did the opposite for many years while business traveling on multiple flights weekly, and I just got tired of it. Different people have different tolerances for different things.
I do have to say that, after hundreds of flights, I had my bags lost exactly once. Fortunately it was on a flight home, so other than having to wait at the airport until midnight when they finally acknowledged they lost my suitcase, and having to receive my suitcase two days later at 10 pm from a sketchy guy in an unmarked white van that the airline sent out, it was okay. In that time, I’ve had two or three colleagues have their bags go missing on the way to a meeting /conference, and that’s with the combinatorial aspect to the problem. It’s a pain, but you wind up with a story and a new outfit, and most people you’re meeting with will understand the issue.
I actually have a bike they can fit, but its a crapshoot going through security.
