Last Friday, November 14, my family and I took Cebu Pacific Air, 8:50 AM flight, for Iloilo.  We checked in at about 7AM, and excitedly wait for our flight, which was delayed by a good hour.

If not for the fun stuff at NAIA Terminal 3, my kids would have been restless for an hour. But they did give out a hoot when our flight boarding was announced.

A little past 10AM, we landed at the new and spunky Iloilo International Airport. Our spirits were still high for who wouldn’t be if you were taking a vacation. But the fun was spoiled as we watched the carousel churned out fewer and fewer passengers’ luggage, and ours was not among those left.

We immediately told the two guards manning the exits, but the guards didn’t see the urgency of the situation. They let us wait until they had attended to all the exiting passengers. There was no one else in that exit, except the two guards, who could help us. The lost and found counter was also empty.

As the guards let the passengers through, we kept asking them how to report lost luggage, but the guards just kept ignoring us. Finally, the last passenger passed through. The male guard then led us outside to the Cebu Pacific “office.” I quoted the word because it was not really an office of Cebu Pacific. It was just a satellite office, so they said. (To expedite the whole thing, the guard could have just pointed the way to that office, and my husband and I could just go and report the incident.)

In any case, the person in the Cebu Pacific satellite office tried calling Cebu Pacific NAIA Terminal office but failed. Either he got a busy tone or just a ringing, unanswered phone on the other end. To reach the Manila people, the person sent an email instead. And we were told to just wait for their call within the day.

After an hour of not hearing from them, my husband called the satellite office for some lead. Nothing, and no word from the Manila office as to the whereabouts of our luggage even. Another hour after, we called again. Still no word. So we asked for the Manila number, thinking that we could get through. What were we thinking? Of course, we didn’t get through neither.

This time, I asked my husband’s niece, who was still here in Manila waiting for their early evening flight to Iloilo that day, to call Cebu Pacific about our lost luggage. She said that the person she was able to talk to told her that the report has already been reported. And no info about the luggage yet.

At 4PM, we got a call from the Cebu Pacific satellite office in the Iloilo Airport, telling us that our luggage reached Cebu. They would send us the luggage through their Cebu-Iloilo flight the following day. My husband didn’t buy the arrangement, as there were other flights that could take the luggage to Iloilo on that same day (Besides, we needed our clothes and other stuff for the 95th birthday celebration of my mother-in-law at 10AM the following day).

Two hours after, we got a call my call from Cebu Pacific satellite office again telling me that our luggage was already in their office and was ready for pick up. I called my husband, who was in his way to the airport to meet his brother, nieces, and nephews.

When he picked up the luggage at the Cebu Pacific satellite office, only the guard handed it to him, profuse with apologies. No staff talked to him, nor did anyone seek him out to give a formal apology. He wanted to talk to some personnel but the guard said no one was available.

What do you think? Is this a kind of all’s-well-that-ends-well scenario?

It can be. But what I can’t understand is the slow dessimination of information, the seemingly inefficient way of handling a situation like this.

It’s ironic. With all the modern technology we have—the telephones, mobile phones, emails, Internet—yet it took about 9 hours total to locate our lost luggage and hand it back to us. It was not even delivered to our doorstep, and we were not even given something to assuage our tension and frustration.

Yes, it’s time everyone flies, but not this way. I tell you, this is not the kind of experience I want to get every time I fly.

Related story:
Random Photos of NAIA Terminal 3

*Photo credit