[missingluggage]

I recently traveled on Southwest Airlines to attend a wedding and enjoy a long weekend with friends. I arrived 90 minutes early for Southwest flight #1434 direct from Phoenix to Nashville. I checked a black Atlantic duffel bag.

I am always uncomfortable leaving my luggage in an unattended pile to await TSA screening, so I was relieved that the airport was not too crowded, and I was able to hand my bag directly to a TSA agent. She asked if the bag was unlocked, and I stated that it was. I haven't seen the bag since.

When I arrived in Nashville, the bag did not come off the carousel, and I proceeded to file a claim with the Nashville Baggage Service Office. I was told that flight #1434 had already departed for Hartford and that the bag either never left Phoenix or had been left in the plane and was on its way to Hartford. For at least the first 24 hours, absolutely no action was taken to locate my missing bag. The agents simply assumed that someone at some airport would find the bag and eventually send it to the correct destination.

I followed up multiple times over the next three days, and provided additional information regarding the contents in the bag. (I had to provide the contents information more than once, as the first person did not enter the data in the computer system). The bag was never located, and I returned to Phoenix as scheduled on Monday, March 29th.

As if losing my personal belongings wasn't bad enough, the process for filing a claim is extremely cumbersome. (I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the lack of customer-friendly procedures from an airline whose boarding process is derisively known to travelers throughout the United States as "the cattle call.") I have been told that the process for filing a claim requires that a passenger with lost luggage (a) mail the required information to Southwest Airlines, (b) wait for SWA to mail back a claim form, (c) mail the completed form back to Southwest, and (d) wait for a refund to be mailed back.

Why can't Southwest automate this process by using the Internet? This would at least show a small amount of regard for customers who have already been greatly inconvenienced. At the very least, if Southwest is unwilling to invest in technology to improve customer service, why not speed up the process by having claim forms available at the baggage service office? This bureaucratic, paper-intensive process is obviously a ploy from Southwest to cut costs by discouraging individuals with legitimate claims from requesting reimbursement.

Although I might (eventually) receive monetary reimbursement from SWA for my missing belongings, I can never recover the lost time that I had to spend during my brief vacation dealing with this issue. To make things worse, I expect to lose at least a full day by the time I complete all the required paperwork and run around town trying to find replacements for all my lost items. For someone who works night and day to keep up with school and a full-time job, this is a major setback.

When I purchase an $8.00 paperback book at Amazon.com, I can log on to the Internet at any point in the process and find out when the package shipped, what cities it has passed through en route to my doorstop, and when I can expect delivery. I entrusted Southwest's employees with personal items that have far greater value (and will be much more difficult to replace) than an $8 book. Why can't I expect a comparable level of service from SWA?

In the future, I will happily pay more to purchase tickets from your competitors in hopes that they take customer service a little more seriously than SWA and that they have a process in place to initiate prompt corrective action when problems do occur. I am also warning friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances (not to mention anyone else who will listen) about SWA's sloppy baggage handling procedures, outdated technology, and overall lack of commitment to customer service.