Today I left good ole Nashville, Tennessee for the bright lights of Las Vegas, Nevada. This trip was business not pleasure, I have never had a desire to visit Las Vegas actually. I am sure it is a fine place to visit, but I never thought of it as a place I would go on vacation. Anyway, I am attending DevConnections which is why I am in town. So back to the reason for my post.
It was a cool day with beautiful blue skies in Nashville when I arrived a the airport. Little did I know the challenges that I would be facing and surprisingly how I would respond. After making my way through security and I settled in at the gate to await my flight. Around time for boarding the attendant announced that they plan was being checked for a small electrical problem and they needed to do a quick fix. Well, 2 hours later the plane was officially deemed broken and the flight canceled. The airline was quick to point out that there was another flight to Dallas, I was flying through Dallas to Vegas, and they would rebook all of us on that flight.
During the rebooking procedure the attendant wrote up a new ticket (by hand) for my checked luggage. The attendant then placed my claim sticker on the carbon copy and handed me the original hand receipt. I got on the flight to Dallas without further event and even on the Las Vegas flight without issue. Well that isn't completely accurate, when we landed in Vegas another place was still at our gate so they parked our plane on the tarmac until that plane left. I don't know how long we were there, but I was happy when it was time to get off the plane.
In the back of my mind I was concerned about the airline losing my bag, based on the hand written receipt. My fears were confirmed when baggage claim came and went without my bag being present. When I presented the hand written receipt to the attendant in Vegas, she immediately groaned and said, I never trust this process. She gets all the information and tells me who to call to check up on my bag and that they will deliver it to the hotel when it arrives.
After grabbing dinner with my colleagues I decided to call to get a status on my bag. Somehow it ended up in Houston and my airline was giving it to another airline to get it to Vegas since they don't have direct flights from Houston to Las Vegas. When I asked how my bag ended up in Houston, the lady responded, I have no idea. I wanted to say, I know how, you had a human intervene into a process that is run by computer. Anyway, I will hopefully have my bag late afternoon. I am curious though, why an attendant can rebook and reprint a boarding pass for any flight, but the process to handle a bag change is done by hand. This seems like a serious defect and is confirmed when someone who deals with lost luggage daily expresses concern when seeing my handwritten ticket. I am not trying to complain, but rather understand how little things like this get missed.
