Test of Patience

I lost my luggage on a flight from Frankfurt to Zurich on Thursday. That's four days ago. I haven't seen it since and I no-one can tell me where it is.

It all started on Thursday morning when I was woken up by the stormy weather outside. It sounded like it was really bucketing down and it concerned me as I had to make my way to the airport. Luckily after I had breakfast it reduced to a drizzle, so I was able to get in a little last minute shopping.

The fun started when I arrived at the airport. My flight was scheduled to depart at 13:35, but it was delayed till 14:25. I met a South African couple from Johannesburg and a German who spoke good English. They were telling me how they had been waiting since 07:00, since their flight was canceled due to the weather. We finally started boarding at 14:45. With rather infrequent updates on the delay, we ended up sitting in the plane until about 16:20 due to the large backlog of flights waiting to take-off. We took-off at 16:30 and landed at 17:10 - the short flight made the delay even more pathetic.

Then we get off the plane and went to collect our luggage. Hey, wait a moment, what luggage? Yes, that's right, they lost our freaking luggage!!! Twice I've been to Zurich now and both times my luggage has got lost, but nowhere else has it happened to me. Most people on the flight lost their luggage, so the Lost Luggage queue was fairly long and they were rather slow. I finally left the airport at 18:15, took the next train to the city and walked to the hotel, since by that time I had given up with the transport system. I made it with 10 minutes to spare with dinner at 19:00. As though it was all planned out!

Today, four days later, I still wait for my luggage. It was scheduled to be sent from Zurich to Johannesburg on Saturday, but when I called this morning they said it never arrived. No-one's talking to one another and they apparently can only read updates via notes posted on the system.