lost skis!! warning and advice needed

My skis and boots went on the plane in Manchester but did (possibly) not arrive in Geneva ..The Airport is chaos on a Saturday morning with 6/7 flights arriving within 1/2 an hour..and one little place to collect them from ..waited for mine for an hour and no joy ...only a bag like mine but not mine left there, so went off having reported it. I actually feel that someone took the wrong bag and nearly spoiled my holiday..I was (and am) really p*****d off

They never arrived so I had to hire skis and boots.. €141 ..now for the help ..who shall i claim from ..airline or insurance ...anyone had any experience??

Advice for anyone travelling with skis ..make the bag different ...if i get mine back I shall spray paint part of it with my initials a fluorescent colour

Hi Dave

Sorry to hear about your lost kit.
Claim from your travel insurance company. They'll ask for an official report, called a Property Irregularity Report (PIR) which [hopefully] you were given when you reported the loss at GVA. If you haven't got a PIR, did you get a written report from a rep/operator? That may be ok instead.
:idea: Second the advice about making bags look unique: a bright pink one - who's gonna nick that?
Good luck.

Air Canada lost my bag and they offered to pay for the rental so may be worth asking the airline (probably unlikely if you were flying with a budget company). I just forgot to claim.

You should be able to claim for both the loss of the skis and the cost of hiring. The insurance company will claw back the money from the airline.

Daved I'm sorry you lost your kit, and agree with your suggestions about making your bag unique. I believe that there is a problem at GVA as I have seen some travellers opening ski bags to see what is inside, ie: not looking at the label or tags. I generally leave my luggage to circulate and wait for the skis to come out. I have a Stockli bag, to contain (oddly enough) Stockli skis, and one one trip, I was grabbing my ski bag at GVA and a woman said to me "Oooh Stocklis, I could have had them". I have no idea if she was joking or not :evil:

I always tend to leave mrs H looking out for the bags on the carousel and make a point of heading of quickly to where the skis are delivered. I have also seen people looking in ski bags, and overheard similar comments about other peoples stuff. I have a unique ski bag, never seen another one like it, and to be honest i dont think anyone would be bothered to run off with mine as its so big!
You do need to have some kind of plan when you get to the airports though, as unfortunately this kind of thing isnt as isolated an incident as I thought.

Are you sure your skis made it on to the flight out of the UK?

I checked up on return yesterday and the girl at the jet2 desk asked that for me and was told they had..

There are about 7 ski flights on Saturday mornings to Geneva and if you are a lone skier you can't be at two places at once, as they (the skis+ oversize luggage) all come to the same place...at the same time ..with dozens of people milling around...as I said Chaos

daved wrote:I checked up on return yesterday and the girl at the jet2 desk asked that for me and was told they had..

There are about 7 ski flights on Saturday mornings to Geneva and if you are a lone skier you can't be at two places at once, as they (the skis+ oversize luggage) all come to the same place...at the same time ..with dozens of people milling around...as I said Chaos

Didnt realise you were alone. Personally, I'd go fetch my skis first, and worry about the luggage later.