Bengaluru Woman Shares Ordeal After Air India Missed Her Luggage At US Airport

A woman had a distressing experience during her recent flight from the US to India to attend her friend’s wedding. While the journey went okay, the woman was shocked to know that the airline failed to load her luggage in the first place. Pooja Kathail, a PhD student at UC Berkeley in the US, shared her frustration in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

Writing about her experience, Pooja described that she took a direct Air India flight from San Francisco to Bengaluru to attend her friend’s wedding. But upon reaching her destination, she found her luggage was missing. She revealed how the airline failed to load her suitcase onto the plane. To add to her woes, she had to make nearly 40 attempts to contact the airline’s customer care. But even after 36 hours, there was no delivery estimate of her luggage. Pooja further wrote that she didn’t have any clothes to wear to her friend’s wedding since the luggage had all her belongings.

She wrote, “W** Air India. Took a direct flight from San Francisco->Bengaluru yesterday and never loaded my suitcase on the plane. It’s been 36 hrs, and still no delivery estimate. And it took ~40 tries to get them to even pick up the phone. Going to a wedding tomorrow and don’t have any clothes.”

In response to Kathail’s post, the airline expressed regret, stating, “Dear Ms. Kathail, we are truly sorry for the delay and regret the inconvenience caused. Please DM us your PNR, PIR copy and bag tag for us to check with our airport/baggage team and get back to you with an update.”

Since being posted a day ago, Kathail’s post garnered significant attention online with a flurry of reactions, criticising the airline’s actions.

One user remarked, “Going in Air India is a waste of time and money. Customer service is poor, the planes are quite old. Better to avoid for the next 3 to 4 years until the Tatas clean up the mess.”

Another added, “They should give you all expense shopping to buy what you want to wear in wedding and hotel stay until they fix your bag issue.”

A user commented, “Read somewhere, they rank number one in losing luggage..,” while another contributed, “Nothing new with AI they are infamous for losing bags. Good luck.”

Sharing their own experience, an individual wrote, “Pooja Kathail this seems to be a feature than an exception now, I got my bags after 5 days. It’s just ridiculous. They had not loaded 350 bags on our flight. Delivery guy said they received 700 bags yesterday, not sure from how many days of pile up.”

Meanwhile, a person sarcastically commented, “Award-winner stuff by Air India again… Missing bags on direct flights and can’t find them!”

The post has received over 19,000 views so far.