Last Friday, August 12, 2011, on my way to OggCamp I flew from Munich Franz-Josef-Strauß to London Gatwick Airport with a friendly airline known as EasyJet. That's usually a perfectly pleasant experience, I've done it before, but I've never had to check baggage before. This time, however, I wanted to bring a tent for #oggcamping.
So, I land at Gatwick, walk through miles of bland corridors that I'm sure exist only to punish people for not paying the Heathrow premium, strolled through passport control, and waited for my backpack to pop up on the friendly neighbourhood baggage conveyor belt.
It never did.
Fair enough, these things happen. So, as you do, I go to the desk, report the mess, tell the friendly baggage people that they could contact me at the Farnham Maltings until Sunday.
Nothing happens.
So, after a couple of days of OggCamp, I ring up the EasyJet offices again on Sunday to ask what the hell is going on. Turns out: they hadn't found it yet. Yeah. Wow. So what do I do? I give them my mobile phone number, stress again that they won't be able to deliver it to the Maltings after Sunday, buy a cup of coffee, and go stand next to my stunt double Fab to allow my friend Tim to take pictures of us with his fancy ass-camera.
Then, nothing happens, or so I think. It actually turns out that EasyJet did find my bag on Monday or Tuesday (apparently their internal records aren't completely clear on that) and try to deliver it to — surprise — the Maltings in Farnham, Surrey. Naturally, they failed, and gave up. That does make me wonder: why ask until when I will be at the temporary address provided, if they're not going to use that information? Why ask for a phone number if they're not going to call? EasyJet has all the marks of an excellently organized company with highly intelligent employees.
At least now, after phoning them up again, I know that my bag still exists, and is supposedly on the way to me.
The above scene was taken from the excellent 2009 Austrian film Contact High. Buy the DVD.