I first flew from Houston, TX to London-Heathrow arriving on Saturday, June 26, 2010.  I was accompanied with my travelling buddy from work.  We are kindred spirits and love to do aviation-related stuff.  We landed in Terminal 4 and Air France, being a SkyTeam member is also in Terminal 4.

We were both shocked as the check-in area was bare although it was about 10:00a and our departure time was 12:50p.  The agent advised that the majority of the passengers had already showed up or had checked in online.  Wow, they are indeed excited about it all.  I was disappointed as I wanted to see the check-in area.  I had done my Masters Thesis on this airplane so every time I fly it I am always curious at the extra amount of passengers it deposits on the airports.

We got a standby boarding pass as the agent said the flight was overbooked in Economy by about 11 passengers.   Our previous checks had indicated that there were 10 standbys in all.  So that is quite a bit of people we needed not to show up so we can get a seat.  Let’s hope we are in luck.

We cleared security without issues and then headed for the SkyTeam Lounge.  We figured we would not get in as we have a Continental Presidents Club card, but were not departing on Continental.  We tried anyways, but were denied access.  No worries, we then proceeded to watch planes.  This is always fun at Heathrow!

The airplanes were taking off away from Terminal 5 and towards us so that was perfect.  We wondered if we would see the A380 land since there were two runways and the one closest to us was being used for takeoffs.  A quick check of google.com showed that the flight was due at 11:14a which was in about 40 minutes or so.  The Emirates A380 from Dubai was due at 11:48a or so.  Across the runway in the middle of the airport at Terminal 1 was Singapore’s and Qantas; I love Heathrow!

As it turned out, his bag was stolen while he was on an inbound train for Amsterdam from Paris.  He asked me not to use his image, hence the focus on the hotel’s door/signage in the video below.  Listen to his story below.  Have you had a similar experience?:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Transcript

Me: Tell me your story, what is your name first?

Sugarto: My name is Sugarto (in a low tone).

Me: Say it again?

Sugarto: Sugarto.  So the problem is that I was coming from Paris to Schipol and maybe in Brussels or any other place so somebody stole my luggage [trails off].

Me: Wow!

Sugarto: and that is the hand luggage.

Me: And this was on the train or on the plane?

Sugarto: It was on the train, the Thalys.

Me: O.K.

Sugarto: I informed the train manager, but he said that I had to inform the Schipol Police but eventually I got my eTicket from the KLM counter and they were very helpful to me [his tickets and not his passport were in the bag as well].

Me: Good.

Sugarto: The problem is that if something goes stolen in the train which I know is the responsibility of the passenger who is traveling, but there should be some responsibility on the part of the train manager, basically it sucks!

Me: Absolutely.  So where is your next journey?

Sugarto: I’m going back to my country, that’s India.

Me: Oh, O.K., so this was just a stop, an interim stop from Paris.

Sugarto: Yes, it was an interim stop from Paris.

Me: Which part of India are you from?

Sugarto: I’m from New Delhi.

Me: Ah, O.K. Excellent, how long have you been gone?

Sugarto: I’ve been in this country,

Me: In Europe

Surgato: In Europe for say around 6 weeks.

Me: O.K. was that business or pleasure?

Sugarto: Business, business.

Me: So here is a quick question, does your cell phone works? [sound of helicopter in the background]

Sugarto: Ah, No, because I’m not on roaming, so probably the cell phone won’t work for me.  What you have to do is you taht you reall have to setup roaming and then you have to use it.

Me: Ah O.K. and it will perhaps cost a fortune if you do roaming.

Sugarto: Yea, it is too costly, especially for travelers.  I’m on a business purpose so it means my expenditure is more or less paid by the company  but people who travel on their own money so its very costly.  Unluckily my cell phone was also in my hand luggage. So let me check when I get back to Delhi how can I get it.  I need to contact my parents and I don’t know how to do it.  So let’s see.

Me: So most of your trip was O.K. until this I take it?

Sugarto: Ah, I think so, yes.

Me: Wow, I’m very sorry to hear that but I think usually if something gets stolen on the train, I think when you buy the ticket, there is like a limit of liability on the ticket.

Sugarto: Yes, I think so, it should be a part on the train as well because  you are spending around 100 EUR for a train ticket and you don’t get any services except for the traveling.  Yes, that should be there, at least you should have the flexibility to log a complaint while traveling with the train, but I don’t know.

Me: So you only noticed this when you got off the train or when you arrived?

Sugarto: When Schipol was arriving and I was ready to back off.  So, however, my main luggage was still there as it was kept in the main part of the train.

Me: Alright, great, thank you.