Bag Woes

 Last night for the regional HR Hessen (my state here) news....they featured a Frankfurt Flughafen (airport) story.

So here's some image in a terminal area....roped-off section...probably about 1,000 suitcases sitting there.  The passengers left on their plane, and the bags didn't make it.  

That was just the terminal area image.....below the floor....there were more bags sitting there (probably over 6,000).  

As the airport individual spoke....the bags would eventually all get to the vacation destination....but they were hesitant to say when.  

Part of this problem (the bulk of it) is that there aren't the normally trained team of personnel on hand....to pick-up the bags....moving them quickly to the waiting planes.  There's talk of bringing in a bunch of Turks (they can't seem to find locals in Frankfurt to do the work for the wage they intend to pay).  Where the guest Turks would live?  Anyone's guess, at this point. Probably some container-hotel set-up at the end of the runway.  

Chief problem?  Well....planes only hold x-amount of bags.  So even if the new team arrives....it might take seven-plus days before all the bags get delivered.  The fact that some folks are only taking a week....so their stay of seven days will be without any extra underwear or beach clothing.  Also, it's likely they enter the vacation resort airport....just as the bag arrives there, and it's questionable if the bag will be re-routed back to Frankfurt.

Screwed-up?  Absolutely.

My wife (German in nature) has a short fuse for incompetency, and if we were on this situation.....the vacation would be totally ruined, and she'd be all over the tour-package people....demanding a full refund.

My advice?  If the bag is that important....take it to Fedex, and just pay the 75-Euro to get it to the resort hotel itself.  

All of this leading to some government investigation?  I'd say it's a 90-percent chance now, and some idiot will likely be begging for 'bag-rights'....that if your bag isn't there by the 2nd day....you get some 50-percent refund on the flight costs.  Naturally, flight prices would escalate by 50-percent....to make up for the problem.