Luggage "not lost, just coming later"!!!
 

I recently flew from Chicago to Washington National on United. The plane was completely full. The flight arrived at 6:30 PM, where I was upset to find that my bag had not arrived. Contacting the baggage office about my lost suitcase, I was told, "Oh, no, your bag isn't LOST, it was a SAFETY ISSUE: the plane was full so some of the bags had to be held back for the next flight. Your bag will be here in about an hour, and we will bring it right out to your hotel."

Has anyone else ever been told this? I was flabbergasted, and even more angry when my bag did not reach me until roughly 2 AM!!! Should I expect some better explanation from United, or do we now have to expect that our bags will be PURPOSEFULLY diverted on full flights?

It happens. I always feel like I should be thankful they don't overload the plane and we crash. They should have a gift bag with overnight supplies for people though.

Yikes, I can't imagine boarding a plane and not carrying-on at least enough to get me through the night! I've been separated from my luggage so many times, nowadays I rarely check anything. (Perhaps a collapsible tote with my laundry, so my souvenirs can go in my suitcase.)

Actually, you're lucky that you got your luggage at 2 AM -- I've had luggage that took an entirely different vacation than I did! Now, I'm one of the travel light/carryon converts.

What would that "gift bag" contain? Jammies? Hotels provide soap, etc., and will even come up with a toothbrush if you've forgotten yours.

You just have to sit and take it. The airlines don't have to do anything. This has happened to me twice. The second time I'm pretty sure the bag made it on the plane, but the airport employees were rummaging through it for goodies, all they found were dirty undies (ha ha). The bag got to my house shortly after I got home and the locks were broken (Pre 911).

I heard they are really cracking down on weight restrictions. My friend just got back from Nashville and told me she had to pay $25 extra because her bag was too heavy. I guess it's a 50lb limit now?

Beware!

I read something about this within the last week on the CNN website.

Apparently with the enlarging weight of the typical US passenger, the estimate made for per person/baggage weight was increased from something like 180 lbs avg to 190 lbs average.

This is a valid safety issue: if the plane is overloaded it will not achieve proper lift and could crash. It is believed that this may be a contributing factor to the US Airways crash in NC a few months back.

We'll probably be seeing more of this as passengers girth increases.

I've been lucky enough to never have had my luggage "lost" but there's no way I could travel and plan to stay for any more than a day without needing to check a bag. I envy those people that can do it. Last week I flew on American to San Francisco and was charged an overweight fee for my bag. I purposely only brought one bag to make it easier to get around. I was told if I had divided my stuff between 2 bags I wouldn't have been charged the fee. I don't understand what the difference is if you have the same amount of weight but it's distributed among 2 bags instead of 1. The cost of airline tickets has gone down but they find other ways to get their money. I read in the paper that U.S. Airways is going to start charging for their yummy airline food. I love to travel but flying anywhere is really getting to be annoying.

Weight and balence issues on regular jets do,on rare occasions cause the airlines to leave off bags.You should be thankful that United is paying to have your bags delivered.UA and all airlines DO NOT have to do that!

Dana, the difference between one extremely heavy suitcase and two smaller ones that total the same weight is mostly related to handling: Luggage handlers would much rather lift two 40-pound suitcases rather than one 80-pounder, and it's easier to pack the baggage area tightly if the pieces are smaller.

Anonymous is correct in their statement. My friend, who was charged extra, was told all this resulted from labor disputes, by the baggage handlers.

Yes it has happened to me on several occaisions. The reason your bag was late getting to you was that the airlines wait until the last flights come in and deliver ALL bags at the same time. Chances are the last flights came in around midnight or so hence the late delivery time.

Would you rather have been on a plane that was too heavy and crashed? Didn't think so. Like United said, it was a SAFETY ISSUE.

Marylin..I'm with you on this one..I'd be so pissed off if it had happened to me (luckily it has not, so far).
I think some of the other posters need to realize a few things.
The airlines let lots of passengers fly with overweight luggage instead of putting their foot down. And they do that so they can charge them a fee (hello?? whatever happened to safety issues regarding overloading planes??)
And because of that, other passengers, like you Marilyn, get screwed in the process.
I am not disputing the fact that weight is an issue for planes. It is. All I'm saying is that the airlines using that as an excuse in Marilyn's situation is b.s. when they obviously let other passengers bring on overweight luggage... that's why Marylin's plane was overloaded...and thet ended up having to take some luggage out and Marilyn was the unlucky passenger. What's one angry passenger when they made a few bucks off of others?

RE: airline gift bag

It would contain Xanax, a hot stewardess, and some little donuts.

Obviously.

love
roxy

What is the scoop with people bringing so $%#@^ much stuff everywhere they go? I see people who look like they're moving for crying out loud. If they are in fact moving they should ship their stuff. The airlines ought to implement a limit per passenger. Period. No extra fees. If you're over the limit have your stuff shipped. It's just not fair to those whose stuff gets loaded last.

Well speaking for ourselves in the matter of so much &^$%@#@ luggage, our luggage requirements dramatically increased when (a) we had a kid (b) we started taking longer trips, and more recently when we (c) became SCUBA divers and started hauling gear.

Way back in BC (before child) the two of us could share a medium sized suitcase and a couple small carry-ons...... oh how times a change!

But given all of that, we still operate well within the baggage allowances.

Flying United from Chicago to London Heathrow my baggage didn't come home with me. I had been bumped from a previous flight so put it down to an error because of that.

It was in January and they said Chicago baggage handlers were struggling to keep up, not sure why!

My luggage turned up a day later and it was delivered home for me! It saved me carrying it home so didn't grumble and meant I could put off doing my clothes washing for a bit.

It has made me more careful to pack a few essentials in my hand luggage each time I go away in case it were to happen going rather than coming home.

The only downside was waiting at the carousel for every last bag to come, find mine wasn't there and fill out the form claiming lost luggage.

After a couple of baggage delays, I always pack an extra set of underwear, a swimsuit, a pair of sandals, and something to sleep in in my carry on.

A year ago, I had the late delivery thing happen in Philadelphia. I had told the hotel desk clerk that a bag would be coming in for me, and to call me right away when it arrived. At 7am, I was trying to get ready for a meeting, and there had been no delivery, so I called down to the desk. The clerk said "Oh, we got it around 2am, but we couldn't deliver it because we didn't know who it belonged to." The bag had a luggage tag with my name on it, the room was in my name, plus I had informed the clerk. I don't know what else I could have done. Sheesh! This was a carry on size bag and I was stupid not to carry it on. I haven't checked a bag on an outbound flight since then.

The weight limit is because OSHA decided that 50 lbs. is the maximum weight that one person can safely lift. Anything heavier must be lifted by two people.

My ultimate lost luggage story: a friend of mine had gone on a fishing trip--he caught some fish which he decided he would bring back in his checked luggage. He wrapped it in plastic with one of those cold packs that stays cold for several hours--plenty of time to get home he thought. Only problem was that his connecting flight was cancelled and he was switched from United to American. His luggage did not arrive till 2 days later! Needless to say, everything went in the trash.

This is really nothing to get upset about, IMHO, as your bag was not, in fact, lost. Airline travel is often a collision of safety issues with convenience issues, and I'm glad that safety occasionally wins.
When I flew often in and out of Monetery (CA), the small size of the planes meant that my bag rarely arrived on my flight with me, especially if that flight was near full. It was always delivered to me within 24 hours, usually within 12 (GoTravel is exactly right, they waited to deliver bags until all the night's flights had arrived.) Take this event as a learning experience, and don't waste your time or the airline's complaining about it. (Frankly, if you travel often, I'm surprised it's never happened to you before.)

Not that this is relevant to anything, but I'll share anyway:

My wife and I were flying to Calgary one time on Air Canada. About 30-40 minutes into the flight, a flight attendant came up to me and apologized and said that one of our bags didn't make the flight. She asked where we'd be staying (Banff, about a 2 1/2 hour drive from the airport), and she said they'd have it delivered. (Which they did.)

Yes, my bag got misplaced, but they came to me BEFORE I had to wait at the baggage carousel, watching and waiting and stewing.

I was thankful and appreciative, even though they had (momentarily) misplaced my bag.

The othert interesting thing is: They knew it. Air Canada KNEW my bag hadn't made it on the flight, only 40 minutes after take off. (This was pre-9/11.) Do the other airlines know this information and just don't share because they're afraid of a scene being made on the plane????