Back from vacation on Thursday, Virginie finds, between spite and anger, that her suitcase is still in Athens thanks to the tracker she had put down. Baggage that was not really lost, but that she was unable to have Air France redirect.
“I love to travel but I have a phobia of losing my luggage. That’s why I go through Air France, even if it means paying more, telling myself that it won’t happen. This is the third time But there, I was traveling more quietly, I had put a tracker.” Basically a GPS. To permanently locate his suitcase. However, this did not save Virginie the misfortune she feared.
Two missing suitcases also for his travel friend
“With my girlfriend, we flew back to Milos on Thursday. When we landed in Athens, everything is fine, I saw that my suitcase was there. I arrive in Charles-de-Gaulle, in Paris and I see that it is still located in Athens. I hope it’s a bug. When I land in Montpellier, my suitcase is not there, neither is my girlfriend’s. It is still located in Athens “Luckily, in Milos, I saved my cabin baggage, they wanted me to put it in the hold. My girlfriend agreed. She lost her two pieces of baggage. Me, I don’t regret having made a scandal to keep the one. here with me.”
“It eats me, I have no information”
No luggage on arrival therefore. And the beginning of the difficulties. To struggle with an uncooperative terminal. No interlocutor to whom to explain the situation. Her “lost” suitcase is not really lost since Virginie locates it on her hall A application at Athens airport but it is impossible to have an interlocutor at Air France. She would even be almost ready to return to Athens to collect her property. “Besides, it’s blue with a pink strap all around. My friend’s is the same. Still, it shows!”
She continues: “It eats me up, I have no information. I’m a fashion addict. In my suitcase, I have brand name clothes, shoes, gifts that I had brought back… In fact, I have so many afraid each time of losing my luggage that I make a checklist, I know exactly what was in it. It’s not serious on the part of Air France. I had an extraordinary trip but the vacation capital is screwed up.”
It remains to know the cause of this failure. Label problem? Bad sorting? Perhaps more of a stopover time since between landing in Athens and taking off for Paris, the two travelers only stayed fifty minutes in the Greek capital.
Air France searches for missing baggage for 90 days
As for the company, we want to be reassuring, Virginie is still in time to pick up her suitcase. “When there is missing baggage, it is usually routed on the next flight. According to the Montreal convention, it is declared lost following 21 days. At Air France, we look for it for 90 days.”
The company transports an average of 140,000 passengers per day per year. For this last weekend of July, 400,000 passengers were even transported, for a number of complaints ultimately “fairly limited”. Far from the 35,000 pieces of luggage blocked in mid-July due to a strike at Charles-de-Gaule airport. According to the Minister of Transport, everything was back to normal in six days.
What to give hope to Virginie? At the latest news, his suitcase had been identified in the middle of a good number of other overdue baggage from the company Sky express, which had made the Milos-Athens flight. “She is awaiting treatment”, specifies Air France. As for Virginie, invited this Wednesday evening to a birthday, she offered as a gift… a GPS tracker.
