Hi, yesterday I flew into IAD and after leaving the airport I realized I didn't had my camera. When I arrived to my hotel I went with the concierge but she only got me an e mail . I sent a description of the item but it the office was already closed. In the message they say that if they find it they will contact me. Today I'm going to call but do you recommend me to go to the airport?
I know I left it under the seat and that it wasn't visible to any other passenger but do cleaning people might keep it its a big camera not like a cellphone that they might just put it in their pocket.
Please Help!

I would go to the airport L&F
Do you have a picture of the camera to bring?

Would/Could cleaning people keep it??? of course but you have no idea whether they did or did not.. ditto for FA's.. its all a crapshoot as to what kind of ethics the person who found it has

Ok.. so I hope they returned it.

Well, at least it wasn't your stun gun.....

Please continue to follow thread in the Washington, D.C. Forum.
Thanks..
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

That plane is certianly long gone from Dulles, so if it wasn't found while there, the lost and found at another airport may have it. Unless the airline has a central L&F. You don't say where you are. If going to Dulles is not a burden, sure, go and ask, but first confirm that the airline would give it to the airport's lost and found (along with items found in the airport) and not put it in their own baggage or other offices. If it was stolen by a cleaning person, or another passenger (on the same or subsequent flight) or someone else, what could you, or anyone else, do at this point? Don't expect the airline or airport authorities to start questioning all cleaning personnel and everyone else who had access to the plane. You don't know what happened. No secret remedies, sad to say. Good luck. I left a digital camera at the domestic airport in Buenos Aires (pretty sure a guy sitting near me took it as I was rearranging a bag's contents-- my fault for not paying attention). Never got it back.

If it was found by the cleaning crew on the plane at Dulles, assuming you were on a UA flight, it would go to United's baggage office behind baggage carousel 3 - it would NOT go to the airport Lost & Found office (behind carousel 2).

Key words missing: "and turned in".

OP - What carrier were you flying and was it an inbound intl. flight? Did you leave it on the plane or possibly set it down inside the airport and if so, which side of CBP checkpoint?

UA has its own L&F, but you basically have to go out to IAD unless it's startlingly unique. If it's inside CBP checkpoint, would almost certainly be held by CBP. If outisde, the IAD L&F.

If left on aircraft and not found at IAD, maybe at next station or possibly wherever aircraft overnighted and received its only thorough cleaning of day.

It was an United flight from Mexico City to IAD and I left it right under the seat next to the window, I know I didn't left if because I even checked if I wasn't missing anything and I didn't see anything.
I already went to IAD to the lost and found office and checked the boxes where there was everything : iPads, Kindles, cameras, laptops everything but my camera.
I seriously don't know where is it now. Has anyone had the same kind of experience?

I once forgot a bag of duty free in the overhead bin on a Thai Air flight landing at JFK. While waiting at the luggage carousel there was an announcement that a bag had been left in the bin over seats XX A&B, and I embarrassedly retrieved it from the smiling Thai FA.

I like to think that most people - passengers or airline/cleaning crew - are honest, but some are not. Sometimes forgotten items are turned into lost and found, sometimes it's "finders, keepers." I was lucky. It appears that the OP was not.

I left a laptop on this exact flight last summer (MEX-IAD) and I went out to the airport the next day. First I went to United L&F behind carousal 3 and they gave me a gate pass to go out to the concourse L&F which is next to one of the RCCs. I'm not 100% sure but I think it was near gate C7.

They had it out at the Concourse L&F, so people sometime do get their items back.

I would just make sure that the terminal L&F calls the Concourse L&F.

BTW - 12 months later and I still have no reply from the email I sent to [email protected]

I once had Air France contact me at home regarding duty free that I had left on a plane. How is that for service! I went and picked it up the next day from their lost luggage.