This issue is even more interesting, below is the next letter sent to United. I actually had to call teh Dayton airport myself and get someone from ANOTHER airline to get my luggage!
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I am writing this letter as a follow on to my letter of July 25th where I described United’s inadequate response to a luggage issue I was dealing with. In that letter provided below, I informed you of United Airlines luggage services inability to retrieve my luggage from the Dayton United luggage facility. Even after numerous electronic messages and untold phone calls, it became apparent that United was unwilling or unable to
On July 26th I called the baggage service to determine the status of my bag. The agent informed me yet again that it, my baggage continues to remain in the Dayton facility. As was done on countless attempts the agent placed another electronic request in for the bag and again called the facility to obtain its release. As was the case in every other attempt, these efforts failed to gain any response from the United Dayton personnel. The agent then informed me that after reviewing the file, he, the agent was able to determine that my luggage had been loaded on a plane bound for Los Angeles but was removed for some unknown reason and placed back into the holding area.
In our closing conversation, the agent requested I complete a United Baggage Tracing/Claim form. The agent explained that at some point, “all bags are opened and the contents listed in the computer system” with a listing of identification factors. He further went on to tell me that this form “would be logged in and cross-referenced” against the listing of lost luggage and their individual contents for a possible match. It seemed to me the process of submitting this form to be an act of lunacy, as we knew my luggage was in the Dayton facility and all we required was someone to pick it up and place it on a flight back to Los Angeles.
At the end of my conversation, I felt that I was not going to get anywhere through the normal United Airline channels and it was time for me to take control and peruse a route to resolve this. I subsequently logged into my computer and within three or four clicks on the World Wide Web found a document listing all of the airlines supporting the Dayton airport and the corresponding luggage facilities and their numbers. (
http://www.flydayton.com/index.php?p...e-information).
I immediately noticed the number listed for the United facility was in fact the number previously provided to me by the ground personnel in Los Angeles on Saturday (see last message for details). Knowing United was not answering this number, as it has been called four to five times a day for a week (see last complaint), I decided to try something completely different. Knowing Dayton was a smaller airport, it occurred to me the different airline vendor’s luggage facilities should be in close proximity of each other, they might have utilize a single location through a subcontractor!
Knowing that any calls to the United Airlines luggage facility would go unanswered, I called Continental. Considering the merger and the possibility of the consolidation of facilities my hope was there was someone willing to assist? Within a couple of seconds, a VERY POLITE Continental baggage employee answered my call. I then explained what the situation was and asked if he could find a United Airline employee to assist me, he then stated that he could help and was happy to do so. He asked for a description of my luggage and some other identification information and within a very short period of time he informed me that he had my luggage in his hands and asked how fast would I like it back (he was having some fun with me). The Continental employee then gathered all the required information and then seemed happy to inform me that I would have my luggage in Los Angeles within 24 hours and that it would be delivered to me at that point. My luggage finally made its way home after 7 days of sitting on a shelf in Dayton.
With all this said, I feel it imperative to inform how unimpressive United Airlines support to resolve my issue has been. I state this for the following three treasons;
1) I am appalled with lack of communications from your customer relations organization. As stated in my presentation, my initial contact with customer relations asking for a resolution was on July 25th. To this date, other than an email receipt, I have had
NO communication of any kind. I find this lack of follow through egregious, disrespectful and unprofessional. To be honest I would have expected more!
2) I just cannot understand why it falls on a customer to find his or her luggage within your system. This is
YOUR responsibility! It is incompressible to the normal person as to why a customer is required to use the internet to obtain the phone number of your partner airline or competitor and ask them to have a United Airline representative communicate with you. I do not understand why a United representative could not take this responsibility and initiative to get my luggage returned, we KNEW the where the damn thing was and what it looked like
3) I do not understand what internal processes are broken within your organization. I am requesting an explanation as to why the ground personnel in the Dayton facility can ignore numerous and continuous electronic request to obtain an answer, this form a corporate prospective must be unacceptable behavior. I know if I do not respond to my requests for information at HP as Dayton did HP would be informing me to look for work outside our organization in very short order.
In conclusion, I ask that you take a good look at your organization and ask the question, “Is this the kind of airline we want to be associated with”?