When we thought that travel chaos was a thing of summer 2022…staff shortages, strikes, and weather have conspired to cause disruptions across several airports to much chagrin of holiday travelers everywhere. Not that we can complain that much about the latter – unless operators could have been better prepared to deal with it.
It is always an inconvenience when your luggage is delayed or, even worse, lost. However, it is particularly painful when it happens right before Christmas – with all the gifts you had planned to bring your loved ones still inside. Following last week’s chaos at Frankfurt Airport, stories are emerging of a substantial amount of Lufthansa customers who have been separated from their bags and their contents for over seven days. The disarray has had repercussions as far as Mumbai Airport, from where a Twitter user shared the following image with the hashtag #lufthansafindmybags.
Planes leaving with bags left on apron
One passenger was traveling from San Francisco (SFO) to Prague (PRG) via Frankfurt (FRA) on December 15. Upon arrival at FRA there were plenty of delays due to the weather. On the same day, Munich Airport (MUC) also shut down for several hours due to icy rain, with over 100 flights canceled as a result. Upon arrival at FRA, the plane to PRG was delayed by one hour to board, and subsequently, passengers were sitting onboard the aircraft for another two hours, reportedly waiting for the loading crew to load baggage onto the plane.
However, the loading crew never showed up, and the bags remained sitting next to the plane even as it pushed back. The flight, LH1400, was scheduled to depart at 16:55 but only left the gate at 20:38, arriving in Prague at 21:22. Apparently, not one bag made it onto the flight, and the entire plane full of passengers had to make their way to the lost luggage counter at Prague Airport – everyone’s dream scenario at the end of a journey from the US West Coast to Europe complete with lengthy delays.
Two days later, the passenger received a message saying the bag would be delivered on December 18. Meanwhile, three more days have since passed, and there is still no sign of the bag – which was loaded with Christmas presents. The woman said that if it happened at any other time, she probably would not react as strongly, but as it is, the staff shortage at Lufthansa had “ruined the Christmas spirit” due to the missing gifts.
And she is far from alone – not in missing bags for a week and not in expressing her exasperation. Social media is ablaze with aggrieved holidaymakers who are not accepting “the weather” for an answer. Several travelers have taken to Twitter to display the location of their Airtags inside the bags, which had not moved for nearly a week.
A spokesperson for Lufthansa shared the following statement,
“The extreme weather conditions of the past week have had an impact on all travel and air traffic in Germany. Lufthansa had to cancel or delay flights due to the extreme weather conditions of the past week. Due to staff shortages at the system partners, baggage could often not be loaded either. Lufthansa regrets the inconvenience this has caused passengers. Lufthansa has made further flight cancellations for the next few days to stabilize the flight schedule over the holidays and the New Year. Passengers will be informed about the cancellations and will be offered alternative travel options.”
Furthermore, the airline wanted to highlight that the whole system was under considerable pressure due to the tense weather conditions of the past week and staff shortages at the airports. However, it said that it was “working together with the airports to ensure that the baggage that was not transported can be delivered.”
Source: simpleflying.com