IBERIA.

I've heard that they are in a 'couldn't-care-less' attitude about their alliance in Oneworld.

Having arrived in MAD today with a piece of my baggage missing (from ORY), and the lassez-faire attitude of their staff makes me wonder how concerned they are. Apparently losing bags is a common occurence with them.

5 hours on. No sign of bag in their bag tracing unit. Does anyone have any words of consolation with IBERIA?

Different experiences here, but s*it happens. We've yet to lose a bag with IB over many segments and connections, have not experienced the legendary poor service, and even think the food is pretty good.

I do hope your bag is returned to you soon.

It's not an answer, just another data point: my bag was lost on a simple AA nonstop from SEA to JFK a couple of weeks ago, despite a priority/first class tag on it, next to my EXP tag. I was frustrated by AA's bag tracking/recovery system but it turned up at our hotel the next morning. No apology, and I've yet to be reimbursed for the toiletries etc. I had to buy in the meantime.

Should AA be in Oneworld?

No, it not just the bag issue.

Flight was scheduled for 1115am departure this morning.
By 11am, no gate announced cos the plane hasn't arrived, but the information screen still says "ON TIME".
By 1110am, gate shows 10G. People queue up over there only to be told by staff that the flight we're queueing up for is not the flight we want. We then check the TV monitors to realise that they changed the gate in the meantime.

Plane was late but arrived more or less on time.

MAD airport. Huge and empty!

At least IB website has baggage tracer. I once lost a bag between SAN and LHR via LAX with a 5 hour connection! AA didn't know where bag went. And 3 weeks later still didn't. Bag was delivered within 12 hours anyway.

Lets just see what happens. At least I can go shopping later today for bare essentials as it is covered under my creditcard if no progress of my bag by 7pm local time.

Sorry to hear about your bag, hope it turns up soon.

It's a small world ... I was on the ORY-MAD today also. The lounge attendant sent us out of the lounge at 11:20, saying it was about 30 minutes late ... but I then stood in the queue at 10G for 30 minutes before they started boarding from 10G. There was quite a bit of confusion with a Malta flight departing around the same time, several people in the queue for MAD thought they were in the queue for Malta; perhaps your bag got somehow similarly confused and is now in Malta?

Very light load in J ... 2 seats filled in 7 rows (28 total) . Nevertheless I did my best to deplete their supply of cava

Anecdotes I have come across seem to indicate a 'couldn't-care-less' attitude in relation to oneworld; more like a 'couldn't-care-less' attitude in relation to most issues, aspecially if there is a problem.

I think BA may have a bigger problem with missing luggage compared with IB. UK staff are no better in terms of caring. They type the relevant details in - end of job.

I guess I shouldn't expect them to be the likes of SQ and SATS at Changi Airport with walkie talkies in hand to find out if there are any more bags at the luggage hold!

Anyway, IB has found my bag. It was in MAD all along... but it took them till midnight to find it!

It will be delivered to SVQ instead of MAD. The agent asked me if I had an IB FF so maybe IB was going to give me points, but alas I said I have AAdvantage.

To answer the question: because they provide a valuable network to One World and get valuable business from One World. The new MAD airport is set to become/is already, a rival to London and Paris for connections.

By the way, I took an award flight IAD MAD IST recently and liked it very much in IB J class. And, the IB lounge in MAD is really something, sleeping quarters and a Spanish wine bar with a wine steward. Yummm.

Which lounge is this? A new one? Or the ole Francisco Mariesco Phillipo Don Pasquale de Verona con Spumante lounge I've visited in MAD???

I think there more pathetic airlines in ST and *. IB is like SQ to them, so I think fits well into 1W.

That matches with my experiences of flying IB. The long haul business hard product is pretty good but this is more than offset by the total lack of customer service at any stage in the travel experience. You don't even get complaints acknowledged, let alone responded to.

IB give good coverage of Latin America so in theory they should add significantly to Oneworld as a gateway to/from Europe.

I guess we can occasionally ask the same question about any airline.

My bag was lost on a HEL-LHR-ORD-LAX route a few years ago. The AA lost luggage person couldn't care less about it, speaking spanish to him would have been easier than english.

The number I was given was to a automated service that kept saying that my luggage has not yet been located. Eventually after 5 days the automatic service said that my case has been transferred to a "long-term loss" department somewhere and gave a new number -- where one could actually speak to a human being, during working hours. She was quite nice, not that she could find the luggage but she did authorize $200 for my expenses -- after 5 days..

The only problem was that when I claimed for the $200 at the airport a few days later, I got a cheque with no idea what to do with it (I have never used cheques before and our local banks phased them out in the 70's). The cheque had a bank's name that no longer existed (I didn't know that) but luckily in Chicago we found a building with a sign with the old name and after asking directions, learnt what the bank was today. Without that lucky event I would probably have never cashed it.

The bag did arrive at our hotel in Las Vegas a week later. No notification, no nothing. I was just about to call AA that when found, they can send the luggage back home.

Why don't they use pre-loaded credit cards?

Ummm, dude, you don't need to actually CASH cheques - you can deposit them into your own bank account, and then after a couple of days they then become available funds in your own back account. It isn't rocket science.....

Dave

Where do you live that your local banks haven't used cheques since the 70's?

My guess, given the origin of that trip, is somewhere Nordic. Many European countries phased out checks/cheques a long time ago, the Nordic countries being in the vanguard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque#Western_Europe. If that's the case, then 'the 1970's' is a bit of an exaggeration, but it has been a while...