nuritnurit

I flew on LY flight 015 TLV-BOS on June 8th and checked 4 bags 3 hours before the flight. Only 3 of the 4 bags arrived in BOS. I filed a loss report at BOS with Swissport, and since then, I've received zero information as to the location of my bag. El Al customer service says the bag is either at BOS or got misdirected to some other airport, but has dismissed the possibility it is at TLV. Swissport says the bag was last scanned at TLV and is thus at TLV. The sense I'm getting is that no one cares, and they're just waiting for my bag to magically announce its presence.

Given that this was a nonstop flight, what is the most likely explanation for this situation? Are there any executive offices I can contact (either in Israel or the US) to get this resolved?

I'm very distressed about this since my bag contains many irreplaceable items.

תודה!

Houminer

nuritnurit

"tracing continues. Please check back later"

Tlvyyz

Apparently locating misdirected luggage is a very low priority for El Al. After more than 2 weeks, my colleague is still trying to get them to find a missing checked bag that never arrived in Israel. The baggage tracker site is useless (zero updates) and El Al told them to call the airport in the US where, maybe, the bag is sitting. For some reason, the El Al employees (summer interns?) couldn't call.
​So good luck - keep us posted.

awayIgo

A friend of mine had a missing bag in the winter. ( bags aren't lost until 21 days have gone past) Her LOST bag, all of a sudden turned up. Not sure where they found it. It was a TLV to JFK flight.

Hang in, it may still appear. BTW "irreplaceable objects do NOT belong in checked luggage!"

joshwex90

Call EL AL in Israel. I cannot stress this highly enough. Call them and push them.

Often1

Calling LY is a waste of your time and simply contributes to high blood pressure. As with other carriers which use WorldTracer, the same information is available to LY as is available to you online. Also, as with other carriers, nobody is proactively looking for your bag. Unless it has been stolen or destroyed, it will simply show up somewhere and be unaccounted for. A scan of the bag tag or the ID tag you put on the bag will show it in WT and that will start the process of moving the bag to you in BOS. So long as you keep WT updated with a valid mobile number and delivery address, that is all you can and should do.

Not sure what was in the bag, but if it contained necessities, you may purchased those. Keep receipts and best to take a photo of the purchased item with its receipt. Under the Montreal Convention, LY is obligated to reimburse those up to a maximum of approximately US$1,650. After the passage of 20 days, the bag is deemed lost and you are entitled to reimbursement for the loss of the fair market value of the bag and contents up to $1,650 less any reimbursements.

Your travel insurance may provide better coverage and many simply provide a daily allowance.

For your own peace of mind, chasing LY won't speed up the return of the bag. It could be anywhere in the world LY flies or sitting in a corner behind check-in.

Houminer

nuritnurit

El Al routinely loses luggage checked 3 hours in advance on a nonstop flight?! I've never had this happen to me, and I picked this flight precisely b/c I figured the chance of lost luggage would be lower for a direct flight.

Can you please clarify what you mean by "outstations"? El Al (in Israel) told ME to call Boston. They are just waiting around for my bag to magically appear. What if the tag fell off?

yosithezet

Houminer

RedChili

Most likely, your bag was load onto the wrong airplane. It happens every day at every airport around the world. It may have ended up on the wrong El Al plane, or even at an airplane from BA, LH, KL or any other airline that fly from TLV.

A bag which ends up at the wrong airport will just sit around until somebody has a possibility of taking care of it. So, depending on where the bag is, that may be Swissport at AMS, Menzies at LHR, Iberia at MAD, etc. etc., basically any handling agency at any airport on planet Earth. And now is the summer season, when lots of people are travelling, and the regular workers are on vacation, meaning that a huge number of pieces get lost every day, and the unexperienced summer workers are very slow in dealing with it.

Your bag will probably just sit there in a pile of lost baggage in CDG or JNB or BKK until one of these summer workers have the time to load bag tag number "LY12345" into the system. Until that happens, there's nothing that El Al in TLV or BOS can do to help you, no matter how many times you call.

Often1

Even if the bag tags fell off / were ripped off or are somehow defaced, that is the purpose of the personal tag you affix. It is also sensible to put the same information on top of the inside of the case. A copy of the e-ticket is a good example.

As others note, raising a fuss and having TLV email BOS is a complete and utter waste of time. If the bag did not arrive within 1-2 flights, it most likely was loaded on another aircraft, perhaps LY and is sitting somewhere else in the world. It could have even have made it to BOS fallen off a cart and been loaded onto a flight headed out of BOS to somewhere in the world.

That is the entire purpose of WorldTracer. Bags go missing every day. The percentage is rather small. The number of bags which are actually lost and not recovered is miniscule.

nuritnurit

My bag was delivered yesterday by FedEx. It had been flown to JFK instead of BOS. While I'm relieved to be reunited with my bag, the FedEx tracking info shows that El Al had located my bag on Monday night, yet no one at El Al seemed to know this when I contacted El Al multiple times after Monday night. In fact, [email protected] ("Baggage Claims NYC") emailed me today (in response to an email I sent yesterday before FedEx delivered my bag):
"Please note for now your case is a lost and found issue. Our lost and found dept both in BOS and TLV are currently searching for your luggage."
The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing!

The status has not been updated in World Tracer either, as it still says "tracing continues."

Is such incompetence ubiquitous across the airline industry or is El Al particularly bad?

Also, can anyone recommend a GPS luggage tracker? Knowing my bag was at JFK on Monday would have provided a lot of peace of mind.

Finally, has anyone successfully received a refund from El Al for the checked baggage fee on a delayed bag [on a flight with a US destination]?

FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act of 2016:

SEC. 2305. <<NOTE: 49 USC 41704 note. Deadlines. Regulations.>>
REFUNDS FOR DELAYED BAGGAGE.

(a) In General.--Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment
of this Act, the Secretary of Transportation shall issue final
regulations to require an air carrier or foreign air carrier to promptly
provide to a passenger an automated refund for any ancillary fees paid
by the passenger for checked baggage if--
(1) the air carrier or foreign air carrier fails to deliver
the checked baggage to the passenger--
(A) not later than 12 hours after the arrival of a
domestic flight; or
(B) not later than 15 hours after the arrival of an
international flight; and
(2) the passenger has notified the air carrier or foreign
air carrier of the lost or delayed checked baggage.

yosithezet