Quieter times at Geneva airport's baggage area
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Passengers who lost their luggage in the chaos at the airport this weekend, 2-3 January, should have it today, Monday, or at the latest within 36 hours, says Cointrin Airport spokesperson Bertrand Staempfli. He told GenevaLunch “We’re really sorry for the confusion and the lack of information for some of the time, but we were caught by surprise by the strike.”
Announcements about what was happening, a partial baggage handlers strike, were eventually made every 30 minutes in three languages, but Staempfli notes that the situation has taught the airport a lesson and in future “we’ll be better prepared to make information available more quickly, in three languages and of course in English.”
A few thousand bags leaving Geneva did not make it onto planes in particular flights headed for the United Kingdom. All of these will go out today, says Staempfli. Bags were offloaded from flights coming into Geneva but with delays of two hours in many cases, rather than a few minutes, the usual time. Staempfli notes that many people left the airport without their bags, which arrived later.
Ed. note: the airport points out that luggage delivery is the responsibility of airlines, not the airport itself, so anyone who is missing a bag should contact his or her airline directly to find out what the current situation is for delivering delayed luggage.
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
News story, GenevaLunch, 4 January 2010.
Filed under: Travel
Tags: baggage handlers, bags, Cointrin Airport, Geneva, Geneva airport, lost luggage, strike, strikes, Switzerland
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January 4th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
“Global Baggage Solutions”, who are dealing with the bags held back on flights destined for Manchester, Heathrow and Gatwick are currently saying that they HAVE NOT been been told that bags will be repatriated today
January 4th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
We flew into Manchester from Genva on Sat 2/01/10 on the 11:40 flight and are waiting for news of our luggage. On a slightly different subject when the plane descended to Manchester we had terrible pain in our ears and have been partially deaf ever since. Did anyone else feel the same? I have never felt like this before.
January 4th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
[...] GenevaLunch Posted by :: Ellen Wallace on 4 January [...]
January 5th, 2010 at 11:55 am
We have 8 bags that were booked on to the Eayjet 14.30 flight from Geneva to Gatwick on 2nd Jan. Easyjet inform us that they are still at Geneva airport and have no idea when they will arrive. Do anyone hve any further news?
January 5th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
I have a request in to the media office at Easyjet for someone to call me about this, but no response yet. The Easyjet customer service office in Geneva says the phone wait is 30 minutes, but in fact the system disconnected me once I went through the automatic questions.
January 6th, 2010 at 12:49 am
Someone at SwissPort phoned me on Monday to tell me my 2 of my 10 bags would come to my home at 5pm on Tuesday. They did NOT show up! Why didn’t they call to tell me they weren’t coming after all? More alarming, why didn’t they phone me to RESCHEDULE another time to drop my bags off. What has happened to my bags! Also, I’m still missing another 3 bags. (5 bags were brought to my home on Monday) I’m at the point I want to march into the airport to get some answers. ( I arrived in Geneva last Saturday around 1pm.) World Tracer website through Air Canada says all my bags are found and are in the process of being delivered to the Geneva airport. World Tracer website through Air France says 3 bags are completely missing. Who do I believe?
January 6th, 2010 at 9:10 am
If anyone has any influence with the various airlines involved, perhaps they could persuade them to post updates on their websites on the general status of our lost baggage. All I know is that my bag is still ‘being traced’ and I have no idea on backlog, if I’m an isolated incident or whether I should be pushing for a more thorough ‘trace’. I caught the last flight out of GVA on Saturday 2nd to Gatwick on EasyJet. About half the baggage was loaded on that flight, nothing on the previous flight.
January 6th, 2010 at 9:26 am
“Pour differentes raisons, des milliers de bagages sont en souffrance à l’aéroport de Genève, et ailleurs. Afin de traiter au plus vite les bagages actuellement reçus, nous ne pouvons plus donner suite aux mails. Merci de votre compréhension.
For various reasons, thousands of bags are actually waiting to be taken care of in Geneva, and elsewhere. In order to resolve this situation as fast as possible, we are not able to reply to emails at the moment.Thank you for your understanding.”
This is a direct quote from Swissport. I just tried to email them (gva.bags@swissport.com) to find out what happened to yesterday’s scheduled drop-off and this is the reply I get. They phoned to tell us the courier would come after 5 pm but the courier didn’t show up.
I just want to talk to a live person! Is this really completely impossible?
January 6th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Dear Thomas
If your ears are still feeling “deaf”, your ear’s eustachian tube may have collapsed due to uneven pressure. I don’t think it’s too serious but then again I am not a doctor. Talk to a doctor to find out how to remedy it.
Vivian
January 6th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
More on the saga: A few more pieces of luggage arrived today. We always put cable ties on our luggage zippers. I went to snip the cable off one piece of luggage that arrived but it was already gone. The combination lock part of the luggage was also undone.
To get to the point: We had a wii fit plus board in this piece of luggage and it was stolen.
It only cost $100 US and was very heavy to carry and we checked in pretty much everything because we were told to do so to avoid security problems when we go through security. We knew we were taking a chance on checking this in but we thought $100 US was not high risk.
Anyways, it’s gone…
$100 US is a small sum but like all people who are victims of crime, you feel violated and angry.
I would love to collate all the comments from people who completely lose their luggage or have something stolen from within their luggage because of this fiasco. They say that for everyone who writes in to complain, there are 100s similar.
January 8th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
I returned easyjet jan2 into liverpool – still no bag 6 days later – almost impossible to get any info on phone – bag could be anywhere – probably being pilfered somewhere – got sentimental value stuff in there – will they let you take a look at the Liverpool airport baggage hall if you show up and explain the situation????
January 9th, 2010 at 9:26 am
I emailed DN Data Lost and found in Geneva (gva.lost@dnata.ch) who gave me a tracking number for my luggage. One bag went to Gatwick (which has arrived) and one to Manchester, which still hasn’t. I just called Global Baggage Solutions in Manchester: 0844 3754257, where I got an update on my bag.
January 11th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Monday 11th January and still awaiting two bags which were on 11.40 to Manchester originally. No one any help; all I get is recorded messages. I suspect they have been stolen as they had money in them.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
I am fed up with the shocking service and no response from people you have paid thousands of pounds to for your holiday so I am going into Manchester Airport tomorrow as there appears no other way of contacting them. It is the not knowing that irks you more than anything; people ought to join ogether under a joint front to take them to court because the ‘best’ outcome of getting your bag back does not compensate for all the trouble and extensive expense in not having these essential items for you and your children!
January 12th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
I Wholly agree in what Derek says. I am unable to contact the useless baggage company dealing with the recovery of the items. The Service is appalling!
January 12th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
I too have spent hours trying to speak to Thomson, Swissport, GBS and RICO and still dont know where my bags are or when they might be delivered. The overall service is terrible and Thomson should be taking the lead in making up to date information available to whoever wants it. I’m now going to have to go out and buy duplicate items as I dont know whether my bags will be returned before the contents are needed.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Have any of you made any progress yet? We still havent heard anything or got any luggage back and it seems crazy to set up all these premium rate lines with no one to answer them. Never known anything like it!
January 14th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
We’ve published several articles on this, and there are comments on each of them. If you want to check other articles, here is the list: http://genevalunch.com/index.php?s=geneva+airport+baggage&x=1&y=6
January 15th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
15 th jan my luggage and my childrens luggage inc all my daughters revision notes are still unaccounted for this has caused my daughter considerable distress,no way of contacting global old answer machine messages and the pathetic excuse that due to the considerable amount of baggage…..bla….bla…, why cannot this company cope with the distribution of lost luggage the large ammount of luggage should not come into it because that is the nature of their work and they should have the system to cope wiith this and as to not keeping everone informed i am at a loss this is total arrogance on their part, but we are completely powerless to do anything about this and they know it