Me and my wife were travelling back from JFK via DXB to BOM, India. We checked in the 2 regular bags per person ( 4 bags, 23 kgs each). But while we were about to board the plane, we were asked to check in our carry on suitcases ( suitcases that are considered carry on in domestic US flights and other international carriers) since they did not fit the size regulations, as we were told.
1. Why was this not told to us at the boarding counter at the Gate? The entrance of a plane is hardly an ideal place to be told that the bag has to be checked in. The gate counter is a much better place to announce and enforce such regulations.
2. Why was every passenger not checked for this? The rule has to be the same for everyone. Some people had the same size luggage in the plane, for which we were stopped.
3. Why were the tags handwritten? Details were filled in by hand and that led to misplacement . Computer generated tags would have solved the problems
4 There is no indication of customer service or lost and found baggage at airport and no representatives from Emirates at the carousel to check for issues.
Because of the missing bags, we have had to spend additional time and/or money to recover or replace items that we would have needed urgently after landing.
One of the bags has since been recovered and returned to us. But even that was not a pleasant experience as the person who returned the bag to us was quite rude and kept accusing us of giving him the wrong address and misleading him - which makes no sense as that would just be us shooting ourselves in the foot.
So, we are missing one bag and still have no idea where it is located and hence no ETA on when we would get it back.
The tracking system at Emirates airlines still shows both bags as being traced - it just makes a mockery of itself and us customers.
Please do not check in your bags after going through boarding. In case there is no alternative, please ask for a computer generated luggage tag and verify all details. Because in the end the real loser is the customer , in all of this.
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Addendum - 5/29/2015
This comes a tad late and I do apologise for this.
Emirates did compensate us for the lost items. We had to send them the receipts (if any ) of the articles in the missing bag and it took them about 2 months to finally tally up the loss and remit the amount back to us. Thanks to them for helping us out.