It’s some time later now. I’m in Hong Kong at the beginning of September 2013, but I am trying to catch up on stories of my earlier travels this year, so I’ve back dated this post.
I made my first trips into the Pacific this year, well first for a long, long time. First up was Apia in Samoa. It’s not a reflection on the tiny Island state that I lost my luggage. I was actually separated from it in New Zealand. That was probably my own fault as well.
I was switching airlines, I can’t recall who the culprits were. Qantas to Auckland and then Virgin Pacific to Samoa, I think. Of course Virgin and Qantas are bitter rivals in the domestic market, I guess they are in the Pacific as well.
I don’t know maybe that’s naive to think that two airlines would cooperate to check my bag through to my final destination. What they expected me to do was leave through Customs and Immigration enter New Zealand collect my luggage and go back through Immigration to get my flight out.
Of course it makes perfect sense and when I asked the ground staff in Auckland they told me that was entirely unnecessary and that my bag would be transferred between airlines. I was sceptical and I asked a couple of different people. They all agreed I would be fine. Of course I wasn’t. I got to the gate early and explained what I’d been told. Naturally, once I was talking to actual airlines staff rather than airport staff, the story changed and I was told there’s no way that was going to happen and that my bag was likely doing the rounds on the baggage carousel upstairs.
I wasn’t particularly happy about that, but there wasn’t much I could do about it by that time. I don’t understand how I could be checked into the flight, but my baggage was ignored.
Anyway. The nice lady at the gate told me not to worry, there was another flight in 24 hours – there aren’t that many flights when you are heading into the wide blue like that – they would track down my bag and send it right on after me.
As I say, there’s not a lot I could do about that.
SO I got to Apia knowing that my bag was gone. Once you get separated from your luggage it seems inordinately hard to become reacquainted with it.
Naturally I reorted the bag lost when I arrived in Apia. I stood around at the baggage services desk. Nobody came. I finally flagged past a passing body and explained the situation. Well tried to explain it. The poor fellow was trying to be helpful, but his English was only marginally better than my Samoan.
I dutifully filled out the forms and headed off for the hour long drive to my hotel with no clothes for the conference the next day. Well no clothes, toothbrush, razor, nothing.I’m not one of these organised travelers who carry a change of clothes in my hand luggage. By the time I put the laptop, iPad, powerpacks, items for the flight and passport holder, my bag is already over the normal 7kg allowance, so there’s just no chance of much else.
What I do carry is my pajamas. Any flight over a few hours I get changed into something more comfortable. I figure I might as well relax if I’m folded into an economy class seat. Since this is later, I’m not sure whether I did that or not on these flights, they were both on the short side.
To make it worse, I’d landed without any cigarettes and it was quite late. I kind of assumed, or rather vainly hoped, I would be able to get all these necessary items at the hotel. Naturaly, I arrived at the hotel near midnight and there was nothing. No cigarettes, no free toothbrush (I now carry one with me), no free shaving kit and certainly no clean undies for sale. And of course a 9am start in the morning.
I had to start the conference a bit smelly, but managed to sneak out at lunchtime and get some supplies, but my luggage didn’t turn up either.
I never really expected it to be on the next flight and in retrospect, I probably should have started chasing it straight away. I had to get Heidi to call New Zealand from Brisbane and find out what the procedure was going to be.
Apparently, Qantas had my bag, thank you very much, but they refused to do anything with it until Virgin came and asked for it. FFS. For that I had to ring Virgin New Zealand and tell them to go get my bag. However, to their credit. I think the Qantas staff saw the irony of the situation and sent my bag over to VIrgin becuase by the time I contacted Virgin Pacific in NZ, they had already recieved my luggage and were putting it on the next flight.
So in the end, I was only without my stuff for 48 hours. It was delivered to my hotel as promised and I had a successful week. It was a much better outcome than I have seen others have, so I don’t complain. I’ve seen people lucky to get their bag back before they leave and I guess others just never see their stuff again.
it was the first time I’ve been separated from my luggage on an outbound flight. In-bound is not a problem, right. You’ve got plenty of stuff at home, but out there, you can’t always be sure your credit card will work, that the hotel will sell cigarettes, that the hotel will have soap actually. You just never know, but that’s all part of the excitement, I guess.