It’s an extraordinary thing, the modern airline business. A masterclass in the institutionalized shrug. I recently flew to Europe, shelling out for a business class service on a major international carrier. One stop, same airline, bags tagged from start to finish with those bright, supposedly meaningful “Priority” stickers. You know the ones—the digital promise of “first on, first off.”
I managed to physically navigate one of the world’s largest terminals, moving from one gate to the next in twenty minutes. Yet, despite having over an hour on the ground and every mechanical shortcut at their disposal, the baggage team couldn’t manage to move a suitcase between two of their own aircraft. I arrived; my bags did not.
It took more than 24 hours to reunite with my luggage in a city that sees multiple flights from this carrier every single day. But the timing isn’t even the worst part—it’s the systemic lack of accountability. When you’ve been paid in full, in advance, to provide a premium service, “oops” isn’t a strategy. It’s a disgrace.
Once the bag finally reached the airport, the airline effectively washed their hands of it. They outsourced the “last mile” to a local contractor and told me, with a straight face, that it would be delivered on a timeline that suited their business, not the guest’s. They basically signal that their effort is finished the moment it leaves their belt, regardless of whether the customer has been made whole.
In what other industry are you allowed to treat a customer this way? If a hotel lost your reservation and told you they’d find you a bed “whenever the contractor felt like it,” we’d be laughed out of the building. But in the airline world, underperformance is the default setting. It is high time this level of incompetence was regulated. We need more than a hollow apology; we need a baseline of service that doesn’t disappear the moment things go off-script.
Life is so tech. But the baggage belt is still stuck in the dark ages.
Mark Fancourt
