US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - The Worst Baggage Handlers in the Sky

I am almost exclusively a CO/NW flyer -- and after my experience on US this week now I know why.

It's now 48hrs since I arrived to SDF and still my bag has not shown up from a connection via PHL.

I can tolerate a delayed bag but I cannot accept that the 800-371-4771 number says "no information" after 48 hrs, the local baggage office phone rings and rings with no answer, and trying to wait on hold for the baggage service office national number results in disconnects because of "too much call volume".

Yes, it is snowing and the weather is terrible. But, even FedEx and UPS can give me an update on my package but US cannot tell me a darn thing about my bag.

At least NW and CO have real ability to track bags on-line (vs US which simply emails a form to an office then gives an auto responder indicating "we're having system problems".)

I'm sorry for those of you stuck in US hub cities that have no choice but to fly US.

I was talking with a coworker tonight about her lost luggage fiasco with US. TWICE this week US lost her luggage. Once on her trip to ISP via (guess where?) and coming home to PIT (via you know where!!)

Not only did they loose her luggage at the beginning of the trip but the flight was 3 hours deplayed and by the time she got to ISP the stores were closed. She and the other passengers even saw their bags outside the plane not being loaded. They made a comment to the flight crew and were told that their bags would be loaded, that's part of the delay of the flight. No one to load the plane and there was no one to add fuel either. She was not too happy about going to a customer site dressed in the cloths that were not that appropriate for a customer training session the next day. They did manage to get her luggage to her on day 2 at 5pm. Then tonight they added insult to injury and lost her luggage again and have told her they have NO idea where it is.

I wonder how often the words "lost luggage" and "PHL" appear in the same sentence on FT. Or "terrible" and "PHL". Or "lousy" and "PHL". Or....

Don't judge US solely by PHL. It's a large, well known anomaly in almost every respect.

Of course if you fly UA then you s/PHL/ORD/g, if DL then it's s/PHL/ATL/g etc...

UA still owes me for bags that were stolen 10+ years ago. US has yet to permanently lose anything. And I fly through PHL a lot.

Rule #1 has always been never trust an airline with the next days clothes.

An important corollary to rule #1 is never, ever, put your car keys in a checked bag!

In the days before e-tickets it used to be important to never put your return ticket in said checked bag but that hasn't been a consideration for a long, long time now ;)

I am almost exclusively a CO/NW flyer -- and after my experience on US this week now I know why.


OK, as long as we're slinging mud, I'll say that my worst-ever baggage loss experience was on CO. I had arrived at EWR from MAD, and I noticed that the handle of my suitcase was broken and dangling and the tag was missing. At the place where you re-check your luggage domestically, I explained the problem and was given a gate-check (!) tag for my bag. I attached the tag by its flimsy elastic, and feared the worst. My flight and many others were cancelled that day due to high winds. Sure enough, there was no sign of my suitcase when I finally got home.

The worst of it was that I knew that my suitcase was at the CO baggage office in EWR--but my local baggage office refused to give me that phone number, or even to call them. They insisted on waiting for my (tagless) bag to show up in the computer, which it of course never did.

Days later, I was able to reach someone at CO's corporate headquarters who was willing to help me; she called the EWR baggage office and I received my suitcase the next day. When my local baggage office called to tell me the good news, the first thing they said was "although your suitcase was damaged, we're not liable because it's very heavy."

So there.

This thread was so distressing to the baggage handlers at phl,they decided to stay home today.

I'm up in Philadelphia area for the holidays.... decided against checking bags coming in here (just doing laundry a lot) after a bad experience with PHL bags in September and I'm glad I made that decision.

I trust UPS a lot more than checking luggage, on any airline, to ship back what I need to take home.

From what I could see at PIT on Dec 24 Comair gave the lost bag thing a new wrinkle. Well sort of. The bags were dutifully delivered to PIT. They just didnt deliver the people. So technically they didnt lose the bags I suppose. But losing the people isnt good. Im not sure how they managed this. Several of us standing around had a discussion about this. They must have been shipping more bags out on the few flights that got through than people. I should add though that the Comair people were as helpful as possible under the circumstances. There just wasnt a lot they could do though.

This made the local news at RDU on two different channels as the second story behind ComAir (DL Express) shutting down for the day because of computer problems. They said that the baggage problem was stated by US as being "due to an abnormally large number of employees calling in sick".

This made the local news at RDU on two different channels as the second story behind ComAir (DL Express) shutting down for the day because of computer problems. They said that the baggage problem was stated by US as being "due to an abnormally large number of employees calling in sick".

Last I heard Comair wasnt shut down for the day but rather 2 days (25th and 26th). They had a lot of cancellations on the 24th as well. Thats when I saw the baggage piling up.