Air India loses baggage

A guy checks in at the Air India counter at Mumbai and says, "Look, I want this red bag to go to London, the green one to Dubai and the black one to travel with me." The desk officer, utterly surprised, says, "Sir, how come this is possible? Your ticket is for flying to New York and you want your luggage to go to different places." The guy says, "Well, if you could do it last time, why not this time?"

I had no idea that this joke would, sadly, come true for my family, when they checked in at Jakarta with four pieces of baggage for a New Delhi-bound flight on Jan. 16, 2003. Due to heavy fog at New Delhi the flight got diverted to Mumbai, which was, of course, a natural occurrence and not Air India's fault at all.

But everything that happened afterwards was even more farcical than the joke above. After landing at Mumbai all the luggage was identified and rebooked on a flight to New Delhi, but not before the passengers were stranded at Mumbai airport for 12 hours without being offered any accommodation.

After landing at New Delhi, all four bags were reported as lost baggage and the guys were stranded in the middle of a New Delhi winter for the next three days. The meager compensation allowance was only US$150 for three persons facing winter temperatures of 7 degrees to 8 degrees Celsius, without winter clothing or an accommodation arrangement.

After three days they were told that one bag was in Jakarta, the second in Singapore, the third in Mumbai and the fourth was still being traced.

Their luck finally changed on Jan. 30, 2003, when two bags, supposedly the ones at Jakarta and Singapore, were handed over to the guys at New Delhi. The cost of the ticket was, of course, reimbursed.

Starting Jan. 21, 2003, I contacted the Jakarta office of Air India at least five times, talking to four different people, but their response was pathetic, as no senior employee wanted to come on line or respond to contact numbers I had left. The operational staff were no better.

The questions that arise from this whole sorry episode are:

* How is it possible that the luggage, supposedly checked in under a computerized system, was so difficult to trace and traveled to so many bizarre destinations?

* To what extent are the rights of airline customers protected today?

* How will the remaining two bags be found? They are not UFOs: They were tagged properly by the people supposed to keep safe custody of them.

Would someone respond, please?

RUPINDER KUMAR TINJANI, Jakarta