In Reply to: Here's a flight story for you, posted by robbos on Wednesday, 12. July 2006 at 07:49 Bali Time:
Thought you like to read this. It's written by 'Raro' an American guy who lives on Rarotonga (Cook Island) and posts on the Thorntree and Tripadvisor.
*Ahh, Pacific Blue and their baggage policy!!! True story from this past Christmas:
Pacific Blue comes here (Rarotonga) twice a week from Auckland.
I was overseas, but a friend here (and the newspaper, to a small extent) narrated the following:
The flight from AKL to here on the day before Christmas was full. But they let everyone take on extra bags, way above the per-person limit. The flight was about half tourists, and half relatives of locals who lived in NZ. The tourists all had regular luggage, the relatives of the locals brought a few clothes, and 20kg each person of frozen mutton chops, beef, etc., in boxes, for the Christmas barbecues, family reuninions, etc.
The plane filled up, and was about to take off, but apparently they added up all the figures from the baggage weigh-ins, and it was way overweight.
So, they took off about a third of all bags, all from the last to check in. No regard to just taking off the excess of each person, etc., that would have taken hours to sort out.
The plane arrives here Sat. morning, and all 200 or so people go through the Immigration line, and wait for their bags at the Customs area. About 60 or so people were left standing there an hour later, after ALL bags were off the plane. None of them had any bags at all. The Pacific Blue rep said they would get their bags later that night, or something like that, on a special flight.
There was no special flight. There was no other flight for four days.
So, the tourists in the group were left without any luggage, just whatever they had carried on the plane. By the time they figured out the bags were not coming Sat. night, all the shops were closes (at noon Sat.). As the next day was Sunday, all the shops were closed. The next day, Monday, was Boxing Day, so all the shops were closed. And since Christmas had come on a Sunday, Tuesday was an official holiday---and all the shops were closed.
So....none of these people could buy any clothes, underwear, bathing suits, etc. All they had for four days were the clothes they were wearing.
One or two of the resort shops opened up on, I think Monday, for a few hours, so they could buy some T-shirts. At the smaller places, the office managers and staff lent clothes and swim suits to their guests.
So, pretty much a disaster for these tourists. Their bags would now arrive on the next scheduled flight. Most were going back home two days later.
Well, at the same time, all those 20kg boxes of frozen mutton and beef that were off-loaded back in AKL had sat in the baggage warehouse, waiting for PB's next flight to RAR, four days later. By the next day everything had defrosted. By day two it had started to rot. By day three it all started to smell. When it got put on the plane on day four, it stank like a morgue after a three-day power blackout.
But, PB still had to put all those boxes on the plane. Many were now leaking a bit as well.
By the time the flight arrived here, the whole baggage compartment must have smelled even worse. Even the normal bags had now apparently picked up some of the smell, from what the people on that flight said.
When the bags came into the Customs area here on the baggage chute, the whole Customs and Immigration area started to smell, no one could believe the stench.
The locals who were waiting for the meat knew what had ahppened, and went home. The tourists waited for their bags, which eventually had to be processed and delivered the next day, all had this same stench.
I'm not sure what compensation PB offered people, bnut the local paper interviewed a bunch of the tourists, and all were ready to sue the crap out of PB, and swore never ever to go on them.
PB's managing director had later come on the news on Boxing Day and said they had planned to put on a special flight---but they couldn't do it. What a surprise, as all flights in the South Pacific for Christmas week are booked up 6 months in advance!!! He was just lying to everyone.
So, I guess the moral of the story is, if you are flying PB and the flight is full, jam some clothes in your carry-on bag, and hope for the best with your checked bags!*