[emma1231]

We never knew that carry-on bags are not the airlines' responsibility. As soon as planes are in flight, an announcement should be made to that effect. This would put passengers on notice to be watchful of others when deplaning. It would be a good idea to always keep carry-ons beneath your seats if they are small enough to fit there.
Bec. my wife is handicapped, we had to wait til everyone else deplaned before I could get up to remove our 2 carry-ons from the overhead compartment. (Observation: Half of AA's compartments were only half-size on the model we flew.) (We flew coach from LAX to JFK.)
I discvd that both bags were missing. (They had luggage tags!) The staff helped look for them. But they didnt wonder if perh. someone merely placed them on a seat or on the floor in front of a seat in order to get to their own bags, which may have been behind ours. If that was the case, no effort was made to search the ground. (I only thought of this much later.) If that was the case, someone on the clean-up crew must have been the culprit, as nothing was turned in to lost and found. In fact, noone advised us that there even WAS a Lost and Found dept.! They only suggested that I try the baggage claim office. When I did that, I was given a form to fill out, which I did. !
I asked for a copy, for my records, and was told that they didnt have a copying machine. I then asked for some sort of reference number, and was told there was no such thing.
Now that I need it for insurance purposes, I can't get anyone "live" at Lost and Found. (I had to spend three hours on the phone in order to get their number!! The Lost and Found dept. won't answer my voicemail and tell me how I can get a copy of the form. It looks like I'll have to drive to the airport (JFK) -- about 40 mins. away -- and physically confront someone and ask for a print-out, assuming they put the information in their computer, as they are supposed to.
To make matters worse, the bags contained two new cameras and seven carts of miniDV videotape of our wonderful trip -- the helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon, the sunrise and sunset at Monument Valley, for example!
Adding insult to injury, the wheelchair and walker we gate-checked did not greet us when we stepped off the plane. We had to wait two and three days for each of them to arrive! This posed great hardship once we were home. And when the wheelchair and seat cushion arrived, they were covered with a thick light gray sooty substance. I believe the chair was stored at a construction site.
I will never fly AA again! Everyone -- beware that there may be sneaky passengers looking to steal other peoples' carry-ons from overhead compartments and then racing out before the theft is discovered, or before the unwitting passenger can spot someone carrying their bags!
Richard Sloan
Massapequa, NY