SkyTeam - Lost luggage, pax in JNB, luggage in DUS?

Got an emergency email from sister.... arrived in JNB from CDG (actual routing I think was ATL-DUS-CDG-JNB)...

They have not received their luggage. Luckily they had a few items in their carryons, but not enough. Their flight left ATL 7/5.

She is outside JNB heading to Swaziland... Air France says they dont know when they can get their luggage to them?

What should she be doing, anything else but waiting? She has trip insurance with 12 hour luggage delay, and asked me to call them.

How much urgency does AF have to use to get their luggage to them??

ANY suggestions would be great!

J.

Got an emergency email from sister.... arrived in JNB from CDG (actual routing I think was ATL-DUS-CDG-JNB)...

They have not received their luggage. Luckily they had a few items in their carryons, but not enough. Their flight left ATL 7/5.

She is outside JNB heading to Swaziland... Air France says they dont know when they can get their luggage to them?

What should she be doing, anything else but waiting? She has trip insurance with 12 hour luggage delay, and asked me to call them.

How much urgency does AF have to use to get their luggage to them??

ANY suggestions would be great!

J.

The thing is that AF has only one flight daily to JNB, no flights to Cape Town, so I think the best case scenario will be that the luggage is going to be on AF's bird tomorrow.. From there on.. You should just negotiate with AF staff and let them know about the whole route of the pax (their itinerary) and give them phone numbers where they can reach them (e.g. hotels) and ask them to call around the evenings or in the mornings to keep them posted with the progress.
Bad place to be (Swaziland)... With a lost luggage flying AF.
It will be a few days I suspect.
Good luck.

Just copied your advice (hope you don't mind) in an email to her.

Thanks so much for replying so quickly. Her travel insurance will cover $500 for the delay, but the shops are closed right now, and they have to wait til the morning to buy anything, before heading to Swaziland.

Thanks again
J.

Thanks for the advice!

Sis finally got her luggage. Delayed from July 5th, til she actually went to the Manzini Airport Swaziland, and picked it up herself on July 11th.

She had very limited communication, so I helped on this end. Air France was zero help at all, actually they were quite rude. All they info they had for me was that they had passed it off to South African Airways, and I made calls to the actual airport myself to try and locate it.

I kept updating her file with, as she was heading to Kruger on the 11th. She feels very lucky to have even had someone find it!

Thanks again
J.

Thanks for the advice!

Sis finally got her luggage. Delayed from July 5th, til she actually went to the Manzini Airport Swaziland, and picked it up herself on July 11th.

She had very limited communication, so I helped on this end. Air France was zero help at all, actually they were quite rude. All they info they had for me was that they had passed it off to South African Airways, and I made calls to the actual airport myself to try and locate it.

I kept updating her file with, as she was heading to Kruger on the 11th. She feels very lucky to have even had someone find it!

Thanks again
J.

Good to hear.
For this kind of trips (adventure, off big airports/cities) it's better to get the schedule right from the get-go... Take enough time to transit big airports especially when you switch carriers. Any small delay and you end up, in the bush having to wash your own clothes...:p
AF staff at JNB should have helped you and your sibling, but hey.. things happen'.
Cheers.