Stranger finds couple’s lost luggage in Germany ‒ after they flew UK to US

The airline does not operate routes to Hamburg but offers codeshare flights with British Airways

Hamburg Airport, where American Airlines aircraft currently do not fly to (Flor!an/Creative Commoms)

A couple has said a stranger called them to say that their lost suitcase was found in Hamburg, even though they did not fly there.

Michelle May and her husband Christopher were scheduled on 2 July to fly from Edinburgh to London, where they had planned to get connecting flights to New York and then to Charlotte, North Carolina.

The first two flights were operated by British Airways and the third by American Airlines, which does not fly to Hamburg.

The day before their trip, the couple was told that BA had cancelled their flight to New York so they changed their tickets for a direct business class American flight from London to Charlotte.

Before their flight over the Atlantic, they checked in their four bags at the priority desk. But when arriving in Charlotte, they found out that one of Michelle’s bags was missing.

A lost luggage claim they filed detailed £1,500 worth of possessions, including the suitcase that they said had cost them about £560, according to Insider.

When the couple repeatedly contacted customer services, they were referred to American’s bag tracker website – which they said offered no information as to the bag’s location.

Almost three weeks after they left London, they received an apology from an employee of American for how long it took for the company to respond to their complaint.

Then, more than six weeks later on 19 August, the employee told the couple that the airline was still searching for the bag.

On 22 August, Christopher said he received a call from a stranger saying they had found the bag while searching for their own lost luggage at Hamburg Airport.

The good samaritan emailed him a picture of the bag’s luggage tag, which had a handwritten sticker saying ‘BA’.

Ms May toldInsider: “Somehow a piece of luggage that did not belong to British Airways is now in the possession of British Airways.”

The couple’s boarding passes confirm that their flight was by American Airlines, but it appears to have been operated as a codeshare with BA, Insider reported.

American offers codeshare flights to Hamburg with BA but doesn’t operate the route itself.

Michelle said American told her that the airline couldn’t do anything to help as it doesn’t have agents in Hamburg, because it doesn’t have direct flights to that city.

She said she hoped friends in Germany, who live three hours from Hamburg, would collect her luggage or that they could pay a company to send the bag to Charlotte.

An American Airlines spokesperson said: “We have reached out to the customer to learn more about the issue and our baggage services team is looking into the claims. We understand it can be frustrating when travel doesn’t go as planned and we apologize for the inconvenience.”