I made the mistake of travelling to Canada via the US.
The lethargy and “who cares?” attitude of the customs people at Los Angeles airport should have sent alarm bells ringing. Unfortunately, I am basically a trusting sort of character and so checked my baggage with US Customs, naïve and carefree with no idea what horrors I was about to experience.
I arrived in Canada to find my luggage hadn’t made it. Well, shit happens. Luggage gets lost all the time, but is usually found again. No big deal, right? After 30 hours of flying, the last thing you want is to spend another 36 hours in the same clothes.
Thanks to US customs and the American Airlines tag team combination, this is what I had to do. My bag turned up a day and a half late.
(After almost 100 years of practise, you’d think by now the poontangers in the airline business would have worked out how to deliver someone’s luggage properly).
What do American Airlines do about it? Did they offer to cover what it cost me to try and track down my bag? Did they offer to pay for the extra clothes I had to buy while I waited for my lost bag? A free upgrade to try and get me to use their service again and stop me from ragging on them? Would they even say sorry, or admit some responsibility?
No, what they did do is have their delivery courier charge a fee to drop off my bag at the hotel.
Gentle reader, your eyes do not deceive you. In order to relinquish possession of my bag, the American Airlines courier charged me for it. (Well, actually he charged the hotel, who paid but didn’t pass the charge on to me. God bless the good people at the Radisson Hotel, Halifax.)
Yes, American Airlines had me pay for their fuckup.
Then I open my bag and find that not only has it been rifled through (by US customs I can only assume, but possibly by baggage handlers looking for used underwear to sniff), they didn’t bother to repack anything so it’s all jumbled up to shit.
In Australia we’re taught some manners. We may be boorish, lazy, drunk, smelly and lazy, but we put things back the way we find them.
Before travelling there I didn’t understand why the rest of the world hates America. Home of the brave? Home of the rude would be more appropriate.