After arriving in Basel, we proceeded downstairs to the baggage claim area to pick up our luggage. And waited. And waited. Aside from our gate-checked stroller (pram), our bags did not arrive.
Lufthansa Lost Luggage
After all the self-inflicted drama of the morning, I was just wanted to get our bags and get to my in-law’s house for Christmas dinner. However, it soon became clear we would be delayed a bit longer, as the baggage was already unloaded by the time we reached the claim area and none of our bags had made it.
EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg (its official name), is a relatively small airport and no longer served by SWISS, just Austrian and Lufthansa within the Lufthansa Group. As such, there is no Lufthansa staff, just contracted Swissport ground staff who service multiple airlines.
The agent could not speak German (she was French), but did speak English and helped me file a report. She claimed she was unable to see where my bag was, so we had no idea if had made it to Frankfurt or was still in San Francisco or even Burbank, California.
After filing the report, she informed me someone would call me on my mobile phone when the lost baggage was located.
Fine, time to go shopping, right? Time to use those credit card delayed baggage benefits, right?
Wrong. It was Christmas Eve and now after 2:00pm. Everything would be closed for the next 2.5 days. I love the mad rush though cities on the morning of Christmas Eve as people complete their last-minute shopping or sip on Glühwein, but by 2:00pm even the grocery stores are closed. And they stayed closed over December 25th and 26th (and even December 27th if it happens to fall on Sunday).
So there was nothing to buy because even the drug stores were closed (one pharmacy in each town or city remains open, but in Germany, France, and Switzerland the drug store and pharmacy are two different things).
Thankfully, we had our toiletry bags with our carry-on items, so that was not an issue. We also keep a couple sets of clothes at my in-laws, so there would be clean clothes for two days. The only thing truly missing was our winter coats.
So we decided not to worry about it. I figured sometime on the 27th the bags would come, but the following evening, on Christmas evening, I received a call about 6:00pm.
“We have your bags. We are outside.”
Alrighty, then. You could have rung the bell!
A couple of young guys hauled up our bags into house and I thanked them for working on Christmas.
Based upon the luggage tag (the bags were re-routed to me from San Francisco to Munich on United, then Munich to Basel on Lufthansa), it was clear the bags were left behind in San Francisco. Thus, I’m not sure who to blame (we had plenty of time to connect and bags were tagged all the way to Basel to start), but we only had a wait a day for our bags.
CONCLUSION
Lost luggage is never ideal, even if just temporarily lost, but I was impressed that Lufthansa (via Swissport) delivered our bags on Christmas Day, which is something I really was not expecting in Germany. In the end, we were only separated from our bags for about 30 hours.
I don’t understand why you don’t track your luggage in the Lufthansa app, as soon as you check in you get an update on the location and at each stage of the journey i.e. loaded @???, unloaded @???, loaded again… and if the message is not there at the gate about loaded I question why. It saves a lot of grief.
First ticket was UA-issued BUR-SFO, second ticket was AC-issued SFO-FRA-BSL. It didn’t show up in LH app.
I’ve done this but not sure it works in all cases. Get the LH flight locator for the ticket (may need some sleuthing as you will have the parter record locator only, by default). Then you can use this to find your ticket and boarding pass and luggage tracking in the LH app.
Hello Matthew
i have lost my luggage on Lufthansa flight from Birmingham, england to Munich on June 20, 2022. today is August 9, 2022 and they still have not found my luggage. any idea what i should. i go to the airport every week. Lufthansa do not care. i am exhausted and frustrated. no one Lufthansa is helping in finding my luggage.
Where was it last scanned?
If I remember correctly, your flight from BUR to SFO was on a separate itinerary / record locator. I am surprised that United Airlines check in was able to check your bags all the way to Basel. I have had mixed success doing this.
If you have both itineraries available, the UA staff can manually generate a bag tag by adding the extra flights.
Ptahcha is correct – it took a supervisor to get it done (SkyWest staff at BUR), but they were able to get everything in and I carefully inspected the tag prior to letting the bags go.
This is a *A benefit that is not very well-documented and that most people will use rarely, but it can come in really handy on complex itineraries. I have had SN at LHR tag my luggage all the way to BOG flying LHR-BRU-MAD (SN) and MAD-BOG (AV), not just on different tickets but also in different cabin classes and with an overnight in Barajas thrown in too. It was great to be able to jump on the metro just with my hand luggage, stay in a city centre hotel, and then have the entire morning available for some excellent strolling, shopping, people watching etc.
The only restriction is that you cannot tag things through if you have any connections that exceed 24 hours.
I’ve taken to sticking an Apple AirTag in every bag. Its position gets updated every time someone with an iPhone walks by.
I have used Apple AirTags on all our luggage when traveling with my family and it worked flawlessly. We also flew overseas 2 days before Christmas and I was concerned about our bags since we had a couple of connections and it was great to always know the bags were on our plane before we took off. When we got to our final destination I turned my iPhone on and immediately knew all our bags had made with us. It is a great investment for peace of mind.
I used first Tiles, then airtags. This last trip, the Airtag was removed by United in LAX, and is still there while the bags made it ‘late’ to the final destination in Italy. On the return, since I didn’t have the Airtag, Lufthansa ended up losing both my bags and the baggage tracking application is of no use. 9 days later and no help from Lufthansa. If I still had the Airtag at least I would know what airport they were left in. The company SITA that develops the tracking software really needs to put some investment in their solution. Lufthansa needs to be more concerned with lost or delayed luggage if they want to be still considered a premiere airlines.
How/Why did UA remove your Airtag?
Were the mini-marts in gas stations also closed? That’s the way to Sunday and holiday shop in many countries.
Basel is a lovely city with medieval art claiming to have been visited by aliens.
Pity you didn’t get to enjoy some fun shopping…
I laughed when I saw “Pram” in parenthesis. I appreciate that you have an international audience, but it made me ponder something…
It seems that English speakers globally would almost universally understand the meaning of “stroller” in the context of your story, but many in North America likely wouldn’t understand “pram.” Just a meaningless observation!
That’s gold, Jerry. Gold!
It’s actually a typo. It should be “prawns” not pram. He was feeling shellfish.
Prawns?
LH is very good on lost luggage (which makes me wonder if they have lots of practice, ha!)
On the one occasion out of s ores of international flights that they didn’t fly my bags with or ahead if me, they gave me enough money as compensation to buy a set if clothes and essentials with enough keft over for a beer. Then they brought the bags to me in my hotel, 2 hour drive away, at 2 am! I was reunited with my bags less than 12 hours later.
Great service.
Luggage is rarely lost. Delayed is more accurate. Not sure how much connection time there was in SFO or what the distance is to the LH tranfer point. OAl transfers are generally run after locals. Surprised LH lost and found could not find a scan on the bag tag or the forwarding.
I agree that losing luggage completely is pretty rare these days.
I have also observed that, in the last few years since airlines started selling fares without luggage allowance, I have not had any instances of delayed luggage whatsoever (pretty remarkable given that I usually fly with a connection) and there has been a consistent improvement in the speed of bag delivery for my flights [at least within Europe]. Before I had the ‘lightbulb moment’ in terms of realising the improvement, I had already found my preferences having changed from striving to travel light to taking two suitcases with me on all but the very shortest trips.
Even in Germany, airports work 24/7/365. There are way too many moving parts to do something like a holiday shut down and losing bags can seriously mess up a trip. I’m not surprised they got you your bags.
Right before Covid I was United GS and flew IAD-LAX-SYD-CBR (SYD-CBR on Qantas). Had a 4+ hour layover in LAX. Got to SYD and no bag. United, like many airlines now use Menzies for their stuff and since I was GS they stayed with me to file claim. In my case they were able to immediately see my bag was still in LAX. They sent me on my way and said they would deliver bag to hotel in Canberra the next day. They next day I get a call from GS desk that United “forgot to put my bag on the plane last night again”. They asked me what they could do for me. I said I was supposed to give a briefing to AU government officials and golf shirt and chinos would not cut it and needed a suit. They authorized me up to $700 for clothes and provided the process to get reimbursed (which worked). Bags showed up the next day while I was giving my briefing. Was the only time that I think GS helped my as on my return from SYD-LAX I had a ~3 hr layover in SYD. When I got to LAX my bag instead of being first off airplane was the absolute last bag off plane as a horrified GS rep stood next to me saying “this cant happen”. They joys for International flying. Oh well as sometimes you win and sometimes you loose.
First class treatment!
Hope you tipped!
LH lost our bags. 2 passengers. We received baggave 1 week later. We filed all required paper work in Berlin. Upon return to US filed for compensation for items purchased while waiting for our bags, like warm cloth, shoes and essentials. Claim # was generated. Submited receipts with translation to English as requested. This was in September. LH responded telling us receipts are not readable. I explained this is the best we can do since receipts are small generated from hand held device. Asked for physical address so original receipts can be forwarded. Lufthansa Customer Service stopped responding. Very dissatisfied. We don’t know where to go from here.
Go to any lawyer that’s into the passenger rights business. They’ll tell you to send one last letter to the airline, giving them a deadline to compensate you and then they’ll take charge of the case and get their fee from the airline too (since they’re at fault they have to pay for your legal expenses).
I was on my way to Johannesburg, had a 13 hour layover at Frankfurt so was supposed to check out, leave for a hotel, then check in later. Got to Frankfurt, there was a strike by the security staff so we were asked not to leave the airport as we will be unable to come back in.
I went to a Lufthansa staff, explained my bags will be at baggage claim, she arranged for them to be checked in and gave me boarding passes for the next flight to Johannesburg.
I got to Johannesburg, my bags did not. Day 4, still no bags. I am very concerned.
I landed in Chicago ORD yesterday (Jun 07,2022) from Frankfurt. One of two checked bags came but an exactly similar bag did not. After waiting and searching quite a while along with the carousel supervisor, I headed to the claims desk on her advice. I filled in the form and the agent assured me I’d receive a receipt with a Reference number within 30minutes. I had to take an onward domestic connection (not related, bought separately) and so I rush out against my own comfort or diligence (I regret this now; I should have waited). The Reference number never came (yes, all the contact details I gave are correct and nothing in the spam folder or messages).
I filed an online formal “feedback” form (that’s what they call it) on the Lufthansa site but no acknowledgement came for that either! I called their 800 number which took me to Germany and I talked with a empathetic agent for quite a wile and the best she could do was give me the North America Call Center number. I’m on hold on that line with the usual monotonous muzack and no human appeared yet.
I could go on about the miserable flight services and food and the hugely disappointing Frankfurt airport (I have gone through it 20+ time over the last 30 years with satisfaction). Things have fallen pretty badly, it seems like. The disaffection is doubled since I have always been appreciative of German efficiency.
So glad to see so many positive comments. Stumbled upon this article while trying to figure out how to contact Lufthansa. My experience hasn’t been that great… Was booked to travel from Lyon to Cape Town via Frankfurt on 24 June. Lyon-Frankfurt flight got cancelled 3 hours and 9 minutes prior to departure, received email that consequently my Frankfurt-Cape Town leg had been cancelled, too. I had been rebooked to fly on 25 Jun via Lisbon (on Air Portugal) and Luanda (TAAG, Angolan Airlines) to Cape Town. Tried contacting the Lufthansa call center, no luck getting through. If I had wanted to fly on TAAG I would have booked with TAAG in the first place instead of paying more for a Lufthansa flight.
Since there was no getting hold of anyone (and no Lufthansa staff at Lyon airport) I had to take the TAP and TAAG flights which weren’t bad, especially the LIS to LAD leg.
It’s just that my baggage didn’t make it.
Contacted baggage services at Cape Town airport immediately; very kind and helpful. Was told they would have it delivered upon arrival. On 1 July, I finally managed to get through to them telephonically. I was asked if I knew anyone in Lyon who could go to the airport for me as Lisbon and Luanda airports confirmed the bag is not with them, and Lyon had yet to reply to any of their daily requests since reporting the missing baggage. I don’t know anyone in Lyon, but even if I did I wouldn’t want to subject them to a visit to Lyon airport. For the two days I spent in the departure hall it was mayhem. Nobody felt responsible for anything.
I’m still waiting for my bag more than 2 weeks later. I can do without most items, but some I won’t be able to get in South Africa even if I receive compensation at some point.
I had tried reporting it to Lufthansa, but as my flights do not have an LH flight number (only a Lufthansa booking reference and ticket number) I could not complete their online reporting form.
I used to work for Lufthansa, but will not book Lufthansa again in a hurry.
Flew from Tirana to Dulles with a layover in Frankfurt. Checked in at Tirana for Lufthansa flight—it was a line for checking in only for that flight. It was a Lufthansa flight operated by Lufthansa. Guy in front of us checked in for same flight series with same agent and also checked bags. His bags arrived at Dulles. Ours did not. Called customer service and were told the baggage claim numbers on our baggage claim tickets given to us in Tirana were incorrect because they lacked the correct Lufthansa prefix of LH or 002 (or something like that). How can they have someone checking in customers/checking bags for Lufthansa flights giving incorrect baggage claim numbers??? Also, how did they guy checking in before us with the same person in Tirana manage to get his bags? To make matters worse, we filed a claim in baggage claim at Dulles and got home only to realize that a reference number was not provided. So an hour ride on a $65 Uber and I am back at Dulles, exhausted and frustrated.
Hi! I flew from Montevideo to Dublin via Sao Paulo and Frankfurt w LH. After delaying thr FRA connection 8 hours and the Dublin one for 13 hours we arrived atvDublin airport on Dec 16th without our 3 suitcases and still haven’t got them. We are flying back tomorrow via Frankfurt again and I want to try to collect the luggage from the airport since the LH call centre tells us they are still there in FRANKFURT. Any recommendations for that? Thank you!
Will be tough. How much time do you have between flights? I would visit the baggage claim area and speak to someone in the office who might be able to retrieve the bag.
Thanks for yhe reply!! We have hust 1 hour. We’ll try at the LH check in desk at dublin airport to see can they get in touch with someone in Frankfurt.