And a follow-up

To follow on from yesterday's very brief post regarding someone else's experience of airlines and baggage handling, this is a somewhat longer post detailing my own recent fun and games...

Last week I flew Albuquerque-LAX-Melbourne, with ABQ-LAX on United and LAX-MEL on Qantas. I checked in two large suitcases (22 and 22.5kgs/48 and 49 lbs, where the limit is 23kg/50lb on United - so I did a pleasingly good job of packing the two of them to meet the allowable weight without having to pay extra!). Oh, and by the way: I haven't posted any photos from the US leg of my trip, because I didn't actually take any - I was working for 10 days or so at Los Alamos, where I've been a few times before, and didn't have the chance to do any touristing - but there are photos in my previous posts here and here and here (although that last one was in winter, it wasn't snowy this time around!)

But anyway, the ABQ-LAX flight was on a tiny little plane, then swapping, via about a 5-hour connection time, to the big 747 for the 15 hours to Melbourne. When I got to Melbourne, they called my name over the PA system in the baggage claim hall, which is never a good sign - and sure enough, the lady at the counter told me that one of my bags had missed the flight, but would arrive on the same flight 24 hours later and would be dropped off at my apartment for me. The one that turned up on time happened to be my old suitcase which was full of all my dirty laundry; the one that had been delayed was a brand new semi-hard-shell Samsonite case I'd picked up while in the US (70% off RRP at a department store, very happy with that), which had my suit (which I was hoping to wear the following day, but never mind...), my last few items of clean clothing at the end of a 6-week round the world trip, and a bunch of books.

So anyway, the missing bag did turn up the following day - turns out United hadn't actually put it on the plane from Albuquerque to LA, maybe because it was a tiny plane and I checked in two bags, although it was nowhere near a full flight - but it instead got sent ABQ-Denver-LAX-MEL, with the hope of making it onto the same LAX-MEL flight as me, but didn't quite get there. And somewhere on its journey (which may or may not have been related to the missing-the-flight thing), one of the corners of the suitcase got completely mashed in. Now remember that this is a good-quality and fairly sturdy suitcase, with a hard (metal?) frame and shell inside a cloth exterior - so just dropping it or putting something heavy onto it wouldn't be expected to do that sort of damage; the frame is bent and buckled, one of the wheels is at a really funky angle, but there's no scratching or damage to the exterior. No idea what could've caused that...

But anyway, after a couple of failed attempts at contacting the Qantas baggage office at Melbourne airport (as suggested on the Qantas website) to try to see if I could get them to fix it or pay for fixing it (but they never answer their telephone), I just decided to call the Qantas frequent flyer phone number and see if they could help. Note also that I am a high-level Qantas frequent flyer, which almost certainly helps in this process... but anyway, they put me through to the Melbourne baggage services on an internal phone number, which was answered almost instantly. They then gave me the phone number of their preferred suitcase-repairer in Melbourne, and a reference number for my 'incident' - I dropped the bag off there this morning, and it seems that it will be repaired (panel-beaten, most likely) and handed back to me with no further dramas and without me needing to pay for it. So, that all seems very easy, and is a much much nicer experience than the guy in yesterday's post had with United. And it may well have actually been United who dented my bag to start with, I can't be sure - the Melbourne baggage services people didn't seem at all fussed by this, it seems that they're keen enough on keeping good customer relations to not worry about trying to pin the blame on a different airline and make me jump through hoops to try to persuade United that they were to blame and ask them to fix my bag instead.

So, in short, this is why I keep flying with Qantas - it's not about the planes (some of which, particularly the 747s, are getting a bit frayed around the edges), it's not about the in-flight food or entertainment systems (which are generally pretty good but occasionally have a few glitches), it's not even about the airline lounge membership and frequent flyer points (which I could collect on different airlines instead if I so desired) - it's that they actually care about keeping customers happy, and have helped me out in a variety of situations where honestly they could probably have made the argument that they didn't absolutely have to. People who help customers keep customers, and this is particularly so for airlines - and I'm very happy that my nice new suitcase is going to be un-dented and returned to service, as well! (Oh, and by the way: it's a pretty big bag, but does actually and miraculously fit in the boot of my car because it's just the right shape to slot into the gap underneath the support strut which cuts my boot space in half and means my other big suitcase won't go in there. I consider this to be a good thing.)