Traveling out of country to scuba dive can be a fun and exhilarating experience. It’s a privilege that few on the planet have the opportunity to embrace, yet it is not without consequences or risk. We easily forget the miracle that you can take a heavy piece of metal with 200 people aboard, add some wings, throw some power behind it, and in a few hours, be in a completely different part of the world. We forget, because it has become common. Despite the miracle of flight, scuba and travel, losing a bag full of dive gear can tarnish the marvel of an exquisite and exclusive experience.
“Can I really trust that my bag will make it to my destination”?
Pessimists (or those who have lost a bag)
Checking In: The Rubber Curtain
The excitement builds upon entry of the checked bag area, anticipating the adventure of the next dive in a vast ocean of blue. The open kiosk invites you in, somehow trusting that the general public is capable of wrangling their fellow travelers, bags, credit cards, passports and the self-adhesive luggage sticker. Divers may feel the quickening heartbeat as their dive bag is placed on the weight scale. The bag of dive gear gets placed on a conveyor belt and disappears behind the rubber curtain.
For some of you, this may be the last time you see your bag, and your dive gear.
Where’s My Bag?
- DEFCON Blue
Initially, when your bag goes missing at your destination, it might be because someone grabbed the wrong bag. Once they realize it, perhaps they put it back and problems are solved before you leave the airport. - DEFCON Yellow
The next level of concern is that your bag just didn’t make it to the destination. Was it lost during a connection? Did someone take it? Did it spontaneously combust? At this point, you contact the airline and they assure you “your bag is on the next flight”. Eventually the bag is delivered to you and all is right in the world. - DEFCON Orange
The third level of concern is that you called, your bag still hasn’t arrived. Calling the lost baggage service several times and hearing “your bag is on the next flight”, you start to lose hope and think that someone is just flat-out lying. - DEFCON Red
Level four brings you to the end of your trip and your bag still hasn’t arrived. At this point, the process of renting gear, borrowing or buying clothes and embracing the “c’est la vie” view of life will get you through. After all, this is supposed to be a dive trip, which is intended to be recreational. Soon a logical thought process starts: “maybe my bag is still at my connection”, “maybe it didn’t make it onto the conveyor belt at home, or “maybe it’s the airport, in the back room”.
The Truth About the “Back Room”
After you check with all of the places you’ve been and find out “there is no back room” at many airports, or “we don’t have access to that room”. There is an assumption that your bag is just behind that wall, or door and “they” won’t let you go look for it because there is a “process”. You comply, and follow the process, because after all, “they” are here to help you.
The journey commences.
Place your seat back and tray table in the upright position – you are about to venture into dark part of the web called the “claim form”. This is where hopes and dreams go to die. It is a sad, dark area where a luggage loss victim can enter their lost “recognizable items” while they still possess a shred of hope that a bag will be found and returned in a reasonable amount of time.
Here’s What You Need to Know:
- “Recognizable Items“
The initial suggestion by United’s lost bag service encourages you to “fill out the claim form with only recognizable items so they can be found”. You will be reminded of this mistake 6-10 weeks later. Here’s why: If you didn’t fill out “everything” that was in your bag or you don’t have receipts for everything that was in the bag, it will eventually come back to bite you when the claim is settled. - What’s In Your Bag
They will settle the claim for what you filled out initially on the claim form, not what was actually in your bag. This is now your fault, despite what you were asked to do in the beginning. - Filling out the form is a full time job.
- You first have to have a reference number, but you can’t get a reference number without going through the claim phone vortex, which appears to be based in India.
- When you report items missing, you have to be literal in your description of items. For example reporting a “BCD” means nothing to someone who doesn’t dive – you might mention “an inflatable vest with pockets and metal made of rugged black material”.
- The form itself is 6-8 web inputs for each item. Multiply that times the number of items in your bag.
- They will expect you to upload a picture of the receipt of the items, when you purchased it, and how much you paid. Keep in mind, every pair of socks, underwear, swim suits, wetsuits, dive gear, fins, etc. – they expect you to have a receipt with you, while you’re filling the claim out. Even if you are on a remote island with no wi-fi.
How to help prevent a baggage loss nightmare.
The Truth About Where Your Bag Goes
5 Days
Your bag, if lost at your “non-airline-hub” destination will stay there for about 5 days before it is shipped to a “hub warehouse”, with all the other lost bags. It can take 6-8 weeks for your bag to not be “found”, but “looked for”. Sadly, if your bag is in that warehouse more than 2 weeks, unclaimed, it can be sold at auction. You may not have returned from your trip, while your bag is sold at auction and being told “it’s on the next flight”.
2 Weeks from when your bag arrived, or two weeks after the 6-8 weeks of waiting?
No one seems to know. Now it is time to make another phone call through the United lost luggage phone vortex. When they answer, they’ll make you feel warm and fuzzy as they once again tell you, they’re “looking for it”, or “it’s on the next flight”.
They’re lying.
Your Bag Could Have Been Stolen
Thefts from the conveyor belts happen more often than you might think. Most baggage claims are on the ground transportation level – this means, someone with the intent to steal a bag could be standing around, waiting to “pick up their luggage” at the claim. They can easily grab your bag and be out the door with it before you deplane and make it to the carousel.
Your Bag Could Have Just Been Marked Poorly
If the bar code or tag information on your bag isn’t centered properly on the tag, it can fail to be scanned. This will put your bag in “limbo”.
Regardless of what happened to your bag, you eventually end up in the United Lost Baggage Vortex…
Salvation From an Angel?
Eventually you may have the pleasure of reaching the most incredible employee of United Airlines – a Miss Harrison, who is the person in charge of finding your bag in the vast warehouse. This woman is, THE employee of United Airlines, who genuinely cares about you and your lost luggage. She’ll go out of her way to help you find your bag and make sure it gets back to you. And, she is pleasant about everything throughout the entire process. The world needs more Harrisons’.
What if Your Bag Still Can’t Be Found?
Once Miss Harrison determines that your bag cannot be found, you experience the joy of spend time getting the “next available” person behind the “push this for that” or “say this for that” claims department menu system, until your soul eventually dies and your fight is nearly gone.
At this point you’ve been equipped with the email address for claims department, thinking you have all the problems of the world solved in one contact. But you’d be wrong. This is the yellow brick road that gives you hope and eventually leads to the man behind the curtain – the nameless faceless “claims department” where your faith in humanity will be laid to rest.
You beam with excitement as the “your email has been received” email comes through, only to inform you that it’ll be another 6-8 weeks before someone can read your email. Maybe you’ll be surprised with a response prior to the 6-8 weeks, maybe not. You’ll hear words like “under staffed” and “busy” and recall the news of 36,000 employees laid off, which makes sense considering the circumstances. But then you remember that we’re not under a shut down anymore, and find out that even more downsizing was threatened in 2021, so you have patience, because you truly believe that you should “be the change you want to see in the world”.
Domestic vs International
Eventually the story ends with you needing to provide receipts (again) for everything that was in your bag, so they may be submitted to the United Claims department for some review of “the man behind the curtain”. There, it will be reviewed as either a “domestic” or “international” flight, despite which connections you took. If your bag was lost between your initial departure location and Houston, your bag might be considered “domestic” with a Federally-mandated top-loss of~ $3500. But if your ticket continued on to anywhere other than Houston (out of the country), your flight is now considered “international”, which falls under the Montreal Convention:
The Montreal Convention sets rules of compensation for travel disruptions, whether they are flight delays, flight cancellations or boarding denials. It states that the airline is liable for damage caused by delay in the carriage of passengers.
What Does This Mean for You?
United can only reimburse you a maximum total of $1900 for international travel lost baggage…provided that you can provide your receipts for such items.
Once you check your bag at the ticket counter and you pay your $35-40 fee, you still may never see your bag again, nor the $35-40 you paid to make your bag disappear through the rubber curtain. Now is a great time to think really hard about what you’re willing to check into your bag, and what it’s worth to you. Some divers prefer to rent, some will buy, some will carry-on and some will check-in.
The bottom line is that the miracle of travel, scuba and flight still exist and there is wonderment and enjoyment to be found. The madness of the lost luggage is a risk assumed when you fly, but there are a few things you can do to help prevent the nightmare of losing your dive bag.
Travel smart, enjoy life, pack extra underwear in your carry-on.
