Luggage problem - Helping local Afghan refugees get their luggage that never made it to the States

Bumping for further attention. Good luck.

another bump

FWIW, I had a similar situation where I knew where my bag was but no one would take responsibility for getting it to me. The bag was delivered to the wrong hotel after the airline(s) lost it. I worked with hotel staff to have it shipped to me. I originally used twitter to get the airline's attention and get compensated for paying to ship it. They don't like negative social media! Good luck!

Contact this writer the travel trouble shooter at the Chicago Tribune. He has a way of getting results for problems like these.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/travel/ct-christopher-elliott-travel-troubleshoooter-staff.html

Thanks everyone!

Here is another website that advocates in situations like this:
http://elliott.org/?utm_source=sendy&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=elliottsemail

Bumping again in case anyone else has good ideas.
Let us know how it all works out, Michael!

Kabul > Delhi (Kam Air)

New Delhi > Abu Dhabi (Jet Airways)

Abu Dhabi > NYC (JFK) (Etihad)

NYC > Rochester (Jet Blue)

Since you know the bags are in New Delhi, either Kam Air or Jet Airways must be in possession of the bags. But if the flights were separately ticketed neither airline is responsible for shipping to Rochester. Perhaps they could arrange to deliver to a shipper that you choose and pay for?

Does the value of the bags and contents exceed the cost of shipping them to Rochester?

Good luck!

Thanks again, everyone, and specifically to your observation, Beth, I think you are right. Because there were four airlines involved, none has responsibility in this regard.

Someone from Elliott.org has already responded to the inquiry that I lodged with them. That is very encouraging and impressive, considering it's the weekend.

I appreciate that folks are interested in this and will continue to update this post. My wife has had much more interaction with these folks than me, but they are very earnest and nice people, and I hope that we can get their bags back.

I'm not a lawyer and don't play one on TV, but related to three of them, it seems to me that while none of the airlines has the responsibility for the entirety of the journey or the bags, somebody must have dropped the ball.

We don't have the entire story. Who dropped the ball? Did the refugees fail to claim their bags in India, or did Kam Air fail to get them off the plane in time? Was the flight late? Or did Jet Airways fail to load the bags? Why?

If it was not the fault of the refugees and one of the airlines or their contracted baggage handlers dropped the ball surely they should get the bags to Abu Dhabi. Then perhaps Etihad - with one of the best customer service departments in the world - would as a courtesy get them to the USA. ???

Hi All,

Sadly, this didn't work out well for our family from Afghanistan, but on the upside, the folks at Elliott.org Advocacy were incredibly helpful and amazingly prompt (helping us on the weekend!) and they were able to tell us exactly the problem, which was that there was no reciprocol baggage handling agreement between the first two airlines that our family flew. It's possible that improper expectations were set by the airline, but more likely that translation issues intruded and/or the stress of travelling with two toddlers under some duress just conspired to create a misunderstanding. Who knows?

But if they are lucky, Jet Airways will still be willing to send their bags back to Kabul. I haven't even discussed with the family yet, but assuming they have family or friends there who can help, perhaps the four bags can be consolidated to just one parcel with their most irreplaceable items that could be more affordably sent here. They've been here for six weeks now and have gotten new clothes, etc., so it is just priceless personal items like a wedding video that they want at this point.

Thanks for all of youor help and interest... And I can possibly heap enough praise on elliott.org.

Michael

Some members of our group arrived at our destination, but their luggage did not. Every piece was well marked and labeled with additional information inside. The airlines eventually delivered everything, even to our second location because we were on the move. The last piece arrived in about a week...