American Airlines Lost My Valet Checked Bag – Part 1

Friday, April 3rd, I flew on American Eagle from Chicago to Arkansas. I valet checked two of my bags.

Just to clarify, when traveling by air, these are the baggage options:

1. Carry on
2. Check at the ticket counter (for arrival at final destination)
3. Gate check (which means you carry your luggage through security to the gate and check it to your final destination there)
4. Or Valet Check (an option typically reserved for strollers and wheelchairs on large aircraft, but used also on smaller, regional aircraft for roller bags that qualify as a carry on but are simply not going to fit in the overhead bins of a regional jet)

Valet checked bags are left plane side with a tag indicating they are to be returned to the jetway at the end of the flight. The ramp agents pick up the valet bags, carry them through the jetway door, down the steps, and load them straight on to the plane in the cargo hold. It’s a no-brainer, and I’ve never had a problem with doing this.

So, I valet checked my rolling bag and my tote bag, left them in the appropriate spot on the jetway (the 4th and 5th bags to go down, as I was the 4th passenger to board), and got on the plane.

The flight was delayed for a mechanical by 45 minutes, and we sat at the gate for another half an hour (almost) before finally closing the door to leave, but I didn’t care. I was going home!

We landed. After deplaning, a handful of the whopping 22 passengers on board stood in the jetway waiting for our valet bags to arrive. One by one the other passengers gathered their belongings and left.

My rolling suitcase arrived, and it was the last valet bag brought up.

I was missing a bag, and three other passengers were missing theirs. 

We nicely asked the baggage guy to double check the cargo hold. He did; nope. There were no more bags anywhere in the cargo area. He suggested we visit the baggage carousel.

The four of us trouped down to the baggage carousel and waited. And waited.

And nothing came.

So we visited the American check in desk to file claims on our lost bags, all of us flat out amazed that our bags could go missing as valet bags.

I mean, really…how hard is that to screw up?? 

In 36 years of airline experience, I have certainly had lost checked bags before. I have had lost gate checked bags.

But I have never even heard  of a valet bag going missing!

Because of the assumed simplicity of a valet checked bag, my tote bag had lots of important stuff inside. Stuff like ALL our tax documents (I’ve been trying to get our taxes done on my layovers), an external hard drive for my computer with ALL my videos and photos of the boys (the only place I have all of that saved), and my work supplies. 

I need my bag.

The agent there was as baffled and befuddled as we; how on earth could a valet bag get lost? She said that in all liklihood, our bags would be sent on the next flight, which was scheduled for the morning. She nicely gave me the number for the airport directly so I could call and check.

Finding these bags is made more difficult due to the fact that there are no numbers, tags, or other tracking tags on them. With nothing else to do, we all went home.

Saturday I called after the first flight from Chicago. No bags.

I called after the second flight from Chicago. No bags.

I called after the third flight from Chicago. No bags.

I called the 1-800 number for American Airlines baggage issues; no record of my bag anywhere.

As frustrated as I was, I decided to ignore the situation for Sunday, which was Easter. I wanted to spend the day happily with my family. So I did.

But I made plans for Monday.

See, I work for an airline. I understand things go wrong. I’m not mad about this; I’m baffled and confused. Sure, things go wrong with, but this? How?!

The only thing that made any sense was that the bags had been taken down the jetway (the Flight Attendants told me that they had seen the ramp agents take my bags – Flight Attendants recognize Flight Attendant bags from a mile away), loaded them into a cart to take to the cargo hold, and somehow our four bags fell off and no one noticed.

If that’s the case, then surely these untagged bags were taken to the Chicago American Airlines baggage office, right? If my bag is there, surely someone would have noticed, opened it up, found my information, and entered it into the system. Right?

Except…maybe they’re swamped with bags, and mine slipped through the cracks. I know I can spot my bag from a distance; even a well-meaning baggage employee won’t be able to do that…and isn’t as invested in this bag as I am.

It seemed a good idea to fly up to Chicago, look through the bags they’ve got unclaimed in the back, find my bag, and fly home. Easy.

So I left my house at 4:30 am for the Monday morning flight and was in the baggage service center in Chicago at 8:00 am. 

The agent there escorted me to their holding area to look for my bag.

No. Bag.

I was flabbergasted! How could it not be there?

The agent turned me over to the supervisor, who was the one and only person who was less-than-sympathetic that I dealt with the entire day. When I asked him “what happens now?”, he shrugged his shoulders, and with a ‘who cares’ tone of voice said “If it’s not here, it’s not here. They’ll be in touch.”

Not helpful, dude.

I couldn’t help myself; I started crying.

Sure, it’s going to be a pain in the tailfeathers to replace all my tax documents. Sure, I’m going to have headaches for years due to the fact that identity theft is a possibility thanks to so much personal information I had in my bag. Sure, my sons TEFRA application will be delayed now, since I need our finished tax returns from last year in order to apply, which means even longer before our finances improve thanks to the costs of speech therapy.

But that’s all surmountable.

Darrel and I have an external hard drive at home to store all our important stuff on. But the small external hard drive I carry with me at work is the one I use most often. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have NO photos or videos of my kids after Christmas 2013 on the home drive! (I can’t even check, yet, since the only cable we have to connect those devices was in my lost tote bag.)

Somebody, through sheer incompetence, stole part of my memories of my childrens’ racing-by, hard-earned, beautiful childhoods. 

Those photos and videos cannot be replaced. 

---

This is getting too long, and I haven’t even begun to tell you the hoops I leapt through on Monday. Part 2 tomorrow…