Warning: Your baggage is at risk of being pillaged. enjoy your flight!

on December 2017, I arrived in South Africa from Bangladesh only to find my baggage ripped apart at the airport. while upset, i maintained my manners and requested assistance regarding this matter and the lady from the Etihad Airways help desk filed a form for me about my lost luggage,

it turned out that I lost 9kg of goods and my baggage zip had been ripped open for someone to get my stuff.

fortunately for me I did not loose any expensive goods but unfortunately they were very sentimental to me as I had gotten these rare items to give to people.

it took Etihad almost 2 months to respond to my emails after I chased them with multiple emails.

after a month of going back and forth I was informed that they would settle for $20 per lost kg which was way below how much I lost. what I lost was already incredibly cheap, on top of that I was offered less than 50% of its original cost.

I responded with a counter offer by rejecting the amount and asking them to keep it on the condition that they print a large text warning label on their boarding passes from now on warning passengers that their goods are at risk of being broken into and that they would only compensate you a fraction of the cost.

the amount offered was handled by BidAir which is a child company to Bidvest, I understand that they have policies that dictate how to handle these events. but they only came to a resolution about how much to offer me after 100 friggin days! their lack of enthusiasm makes me question if the people they employ even want to work there.

most guilty in this party is ACSA given that they hire the personnel who are responsible for handling peoples baggage. these employees have incredible amounts of responsibilities and are going through peoples luggages. given that this is an international airport, they could easily smuggle in contraband into peoples luggages if they can pull out peoples belongings. no international level airport should have this level of employees. either they are not being compensated enough or not screened enough.

once I received a resolution email from BidAir, I immediately responded explaining why I am dissatisfied with the solution, in that email I included correspondents to a lawyer friend of mine, a few media outlets and 2 consumer protection agencies. the following day I received a courtesy call from Etihad from a nice gentleman who offered to amicably resolve the matter and offer me more compensation for my losses. I refused the offer because it did not include any resolution or explanation to why my baggage was pillaged in the first place and that I would like to assist in improving the quality of service offered by the airport and I further requested that Etihad provide a formal response to me and all my correspondents so that we can open a dialogue and solve this problem. He suggested that he would need his legal team to respond for that scale. I requested that they do so and he promised me that they would respond within a week. this happened on the 22nd of March, it has been 2 weeks now and I have yet to get a response from Etihad.

understandably Etihad immediately called me but their response was insufficient, I requested to open a dialogue and I explained that I can not afford a lawyer to come after them nor do I want any compensation for my goods, I do not believe they can afford to pay me back for my goods. I thought that perhaps atleast they can spearhead a mission into fixing this often recurring problem. but they do not wish to take on the challenges and peoples baggages will continue being pilfered if nobody takes a stand.

I honestly hope that my sacrifices could offer some improvement for people travelling in and out of this country. It is a great sadness that companies choose to remain silent in a country that is well known for its loud voices.