Not quite lost but twice the fun in 5 days.
I arrived in AKL from SYD on Thursday afternoon 8/11/2007. I collected my luggage, cleared customs and immigration and went over to the domestic terminal as I had a domestic Jetconnect flight AKL-CHC at 21:00. I checked in around 5:45pm and went to the lounge to wait for the flight.
The flight was delayed around 20 minutes and when I arrived in CHC my checked bag was not on the carousel. I went to baggage services and they had no idea as to the whereabouts of my bag. I have a checked baggage receipt for QF2773. So we start to go through the procedure for lost/delayed baggage. I kept asking if my bag was sent down on an earlier flight as I checked in early but the lady was certain that it had not as she had been working all afternoon/evening.
Eventually she had another look and finds my bag. Apparently it was sent down on QF2767(? the flight that departed AKL at 6:18pm on that day, I think later than scheduled) even though it is tagged as QF2773. After a long day this is not what I need to happen. I had an early flight to ZQN the next morning and it was now late that instead of being able to get the bus/shuttle I had to travel by taxi which cost NZ$40. I did not get to the hotel until just before midnight.
Now this morning I am travelling CHC-AKL-WLG-SYD and my bag is tagged through on QF2754, QF2711 and QF48. The flight left late from CHC and got to AKL and I again headed to the lounge to wait the next departure. Again QF2711 is late boarding by around 15 minutes.
I am one of the last to board and as there is queue in the aerobridge I look outside for a few minutes. I see my bag on the tarmac and all bags for this flight have already been loaded. I alert the gate crew and they are not really interested. I then see a baggage handler look at the bag, load it onto the trolley and head over to AKL international terminal. I am told to get on the aircraft as they want to depart. Eventually one of the gate crew was trying to find out what was happening but I have no idea as I was departing and could see my bag head over to the international terminal.
I am now in WLG domestic lounge and have asked the lady at reception to help me locate my bag. I am stressed and feel even worse that this type of incident can occur twice in 4 days.
After some investigation apparently my bag has been/will be loaded on QF190 AKL-SYD direct which should arrive before me in SYD and I should be able to collect it from baggage services. I hope that I am not inconvenienced again when I arrive in SYD.
I realise that Air New Zealand handles the baggage services in New Zealand and the blame is not directly aimed at Qantas but I purchase airline tickets from Qantas and I expect to at least have the luggage arrive with me at my destination without being inconvenienced.