The Travel Detective

The Travel Detective Blog: Earthquakes, Unscheduled Landings and Checked Bags

Locations in this article:  Amsterdam, Netherlands Detroit, MI Mexico City, Mexico

To Delta’s credit, the airline arranged for our plane to pull into a jetway directly next to their Amsterdam flight, and I raced over. By the time I got to the Amsterdam gate, which took all of two minutes, the Delta agent already knew what I was thinking. “We’ve been tracking you” she said to me and a few other connecting passengers. “And your bags will make it.”

She called down to the ramp and the agent there confirmed they had found all the connecting bags and were  walking them from one plane to another. “We’ve put your bags in the forward baggage hold,” she told me and four other passengers, “They’ll come off first.

Nearly 24 hours after I started my day in later in Zihautenejo, Mexico, I arrived in one piece in Amsterdam, surviving an earthquake, a mechanical and unscheduled landing in Memphis.

However, my bags were nowhere to be found. I was told they were on the plane. I spoke to a KLM agent, who is part of Delta’s “Sky Team” alliance, who explained that at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport bags are often routed to a transfer station and then have to be sorted again and then come back to the belt. So I waited…and waited. Finally, I went back to the KLM agent. “Go back to the plane and look in the forward hold.”

She protested that all the bags were unloaded. Twenty minutes later, came the radio message. All the bags were found — sitting on the tarmac under the plane — directly under the forward luggage hold. So 25 hours later, I could say I finally arrived.

In the often illogical and predictably unpredictable world of airlines, airports and checked bags, I’m convinced that had there not been an earthquake or a mechanical or an unscheduled landing, my bags would probably have ended up in Nairobi and I would be in Newark. And how was your day?

An earthquake, an unscheduled landing and a missing bags all in one day. Can you top Peter’s travel story? Tell us about your greatest travel hazard. Impress Peter and he’ll give you a copy of his latest book, New Rules of the Road

For more of Peter’s travel hazards, check out:

By Peter Greenberg for Peter Greenberg.com