My American Airlines Baggage Nightmare

I wrote this "comment" to American Airlines and waited about 5 days to hear back from them but didn't even receive a simple apology.

Complaint to American Airlines:

I wanted to share a terrible story about my luggage and a trip to Panama in hope that that I might feel better and that your process can be improved so that NOBODY else has to experience what we went through in the future.

My girlfriend and I flew on flight 2189 from Miami to Panama City, Panama on Sunday, June 19th. When we arrived two of our bags appeared to be missing. We had paid $30 per bag to travel with these.

We went to the AA counter near baggage claim and waited for 25 minutes for one single customer to be assisted ahead of us. Then, once we were assisted it took another 30 minutes to setup our case with the representative. This same transaction to report/find and setup a case for a missing bag in Boston one week earlier took no longer than 2 minutes. During this hour of wasted time our airport transportation, who witnessed all the other passengers from the flight leave the airport, left in confusion unable to reach us.

The American Airlines representative told us our bags were delayed in Miami and that they would most likely arrive on the next flight that night around 8-9pm and that we would receive a call later that night updating us on the status of our bags. She further assured us that we would receive our bags (delivered) the next day. Neither of these statements were true. There was no follow up communication that night (Sunday) or the entirety of the next day (Monday).

Finally on Tuesday morning I awoke to a barrage of missed telephone calls when I turned on my phone. Since we were told our missing luggage would be delivered the previous day I was not expecting this. Despite receiving 10 calls from two numbers there was not a single voice mail or text left to explain the calls but I "assumed" this was American Airlines. Thus began the ENTIRE DAY lost to the ridiculous fiasco of retrieving our bags - a tale, as you will see of extreme lack of customer concern and gross inefficiency.

First I called the number on the "property irregularity receipt" we received at the aiport in Panama City. There was no answer and no voice mail system. I called twice more before someone finally answered. I explained the situation and the man told me he would contact the courier and call me back in "two minutes". He never called back. Eventually the courier called me and did not speak English and would not, after repeatedly being asked, slow down his speech in Spanish. I could barely understand him and asked for someone who spoke English to call instead. Eventually, we agreed to send text messages that I could translate with Google's translation tools. This insanity continued for two hours until I eventually pieced together a rough vision of what he was trying to communicate with me. My "interpretation" was that our two bags were with him at the "bus station" in the small village we were in and that, because there are no addresses in this place, and we are in a private home (rather than a hotel), I would have to meet him there to retrieve our bags. Desperate to put this behind us and get our belongings I agreed and found my way to the bus station.

At the bus station there was a woman who had our two bags. This was strange because the courier whom we'd been attempting to communicate with all day was a man. The woman demanded to see our paperwork (presumably from American Airlines) and our passports. After providing her these documents she then demanded to be PAID. Flabbergasted, I asked her what she meant - that those were OUR bags. Again, with my limited Spanish and even more desperate I agreed to pay this woman to retrieve MY bags. What could I have done?

By now it was around 2pm and I had wasted my entire day on this extraordinarily frustrating experience. The next thing I realized is that the luggage itself was in very poor condition. The green bag was completely filthy and the black bag was missing a handle. Worse, many of the contents of the bags were broken.