Originally Posted by
NWIFlyer
The reality is that CEDR is stacked up with cases, so even if technically they can make these directions they have enough on their plate to deal with without delving into matters of opinion as to what constitutes "practical action". They have absolutely no way of monitoring what BA or any other airline does in terms of investigation, they can't really force them to take any particular line, so what sounds great in theory is actually approaching chocolate teapot status in practice.
If you've received the monetary compensation you're entitled to, I would accept that's a reasonable result and leave it at that. Your apology is, in effect, BA paying out. CEDR will not revisit this even if you try and re-raise it with them.
Airlines the world over lose bags - every day. There are probably thousands piled up in various airports. Some airlines have slightly better tracing than others, but most are using the same base tracker of WorldTracer so it's not going to vary by much. In the end it all boils down to the same thing - if your luggage is at the bottom of a pile of 1,000 bags, it's coming out last and it'll take as long as it takes. I would be astonished if any airline thinks it's worthwhile investigating an individual case, and I'd be surprised if CEDR took a different view to that.
There's no point stressing about it, you just have to buy what you need - hopefully just once - and get on with your holiday.
Unfortunately, our bags weren't even on the bottom of a pile. Chances are, they were still in the Heathrow baggage system, nicely parked in bar-coded trays each, waiting to be put on a plane. The tags didn't come of, they didn't miss a plane, it was human error and negligence. So we simply wanted BA to deal with the bags in the way they should have in the first place. And as it turned out, once I managed to get hold of an actual baggage team number, it was very quickly sorted. Because the bags were never lost. And if they are not lost, they will not be found.
I am just astonished how people seem to accept mistakes and bad behaviour, just because it's the airline industry. I don't believe a tradesperson would be allowed to, for example, take 3 months installing a window (leaving the house to the elements), when the contract says one day. Nor would he be considered doing his job properly, if he forgot to glue and screw in the window properly. Surely, when the window blows out in a storm, as a consequence, an arbitrator wouldn't be saying: "Storms happen, that caused the window to fall out. The tradesperson did install a window, doesn't matter how long it took and the inconvenience you had doesn't matter. He did fulfill is contract.