Of Lost Baggage and Restored Reputation

On Saturday, me and my family travelled from Chennai to Bangalore to attend a marriage. At the Bangalore airport, we waited for a long time next to the luggage conveyor belt but it never showed up. The last of the passenger had left and our baggage was no where to be seen. I contacted an Air Deccan personnel. He checked my boarding pass and luggage tag and said that unfortunately, our baggage had been flown to Calcutta . The guy who tagged it in Chennai had goofed it up.

You should’ve seen us fume. All our dresses for the wedding and entire baby’s paraphernalia was in the bag. The next day early morning was the marriage. The duty manager however assured us that he’ll get the luggage back to us and asked us to fill in a form. This happened around 5:00 in the evening.

At around midnight, an Air Deccan executive knocked at our hotel door and was standing with our luggage. He apologised for the mistake and left with a warm smile. Inspite of getting the rough end of the stick, I was impressed with these guys. They had kept their word.

Since there was no direct flight from Calcutta to Bangalore, the Manager had flown the baggage back to Chennai and then had it on another flight from Chennai to Bangalore. He then had one of his guys personally come and deliver it at my hotel room.

I looked back and realised that it took one guy’s goofup to have such a bad impression about the airline and it took another guy’s dutiful work to undo the damage and even enhance the airline’s reputation.