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Health & Fitness

Community Update

Dear Patch Editor,

This is a letter I just sent to the US Airways Central Baggage Resolution Office.  Perhaps it will resonate with your readers?

Dear Ms. Elingson,

I have received your letter of December 10, in which you explain that you are not going to reimburse me for the full value of the items that were lost from my baggage. Just to remind you of the circumstances, I was making a transfer in Philadelphia between two flights. US Airways mismanaged the transfer, as far as I could tell, sending the incoming plane to a gate several terminals away from the scheduled gate, which was apparently blocked by another plane. Therefore, my luggage did not make the transfer to the outgoing, second plane. 

I, on the other hand, did sprint halfway across the airport with my carry on luggage and just barely made the transfer. There were no US Airways personal in the terminal where the incoming plane unloaded to reassure us that the outgoing plane would be held, so I simply ran and I ran and I ran. 

Compounding this unpleasant experience was, of course, the fact that I arrived at my destination without my luggage. And to add injury to insult, so to speak, a number of items were missing from that luggage when it arrived the next day.

You have told me in your letter that as per your Contract of Carriage - which I, like 99.99% of all passengers, didn’t read - explains that you don’t reimburse for “electronics and related items,” which would be why you didn’t reimburse me for a number of wires and chargers which were stolen out of my bag.

Now, I can understand why you wouldn’t reimburse for expensive items like phones, Ipods, cameras and the like. Common sense would lead one not to put those in checked baggage. However, the items that I am seeking reimbursement on are rather mundane: wires, car lighter adaptors and so on. Not very valuable and rather inconvenient to stuff into my little carry on bag.

Ms. Elingson, you can stick to your determination and fail to reimburse me for the $100 of small electronics. And I can decide not to fly US Air or its partner airlines whenever I have any other option, which is to say, almost all of the time. This will include my personal travel and when I arrange travel for the various music ensembles I manage, which often send groups of up to twelve people on long itineraries.

I do hope you will reconsider your decision so that I can keep US Airways on my list of preferred carriers. 

Sincerely,
Russ Gershon

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