Air Mauritius misplaced my bag and it ruined my vacation: CRANE ON THE CASE

In January, I went on holiday to Mauritius with a friend. We flew with Air Mauritius from Gatwick Airport.

When we arrived we were checked in by the Air Mauritius agents, Red Handling.

We boarded the plane, but shortly after were called to the door. A gate agent asked for our details saying there was a problem with our luggage. I asked if our bags were on board and was told they were.

When we arrived in Mauritius, though, my bag wasn’t there. I waited for an hour to speak to lost luggage and filled out a property irregularity form.

I headed to the hotel with only the clothes I was wearing, a few personal items and medication which I had thankfully packed in my hand luggage.

The next day I bought a t-shirt and swimming trunks from the hotel gift shop, and a couple of days later took a 75 minute bus into the nearest town to buy extra clothing and toiletries. 

After a week, my bag still hadn’t arrived so I had to make a second round trip to a supermarket to buy more clothes.

In total, I spent £75 on clothes and toiletries, as well as a phone charger – and the time spent trekking around to buy them took away from the enjoyment of my holiday.

The suitcase finally arrived at the hotel 10 days into the holiday. I was told it had been stuck at Gatwick for all that time.

When I arrived home, I tried to make an Air Mauritius baggage claim online but the form would not send. 

I haven’t been able to reach it by phone or email. I think I deserve compensation for the items I had to buy, the inconvenience and the airline’s poor communication. Can you help? G.P, Dorset

Helen Crane of This is Money replies: Airlines’ propensity to play fast and loose with our luggage means that many of us have endured the pain of paying eye-watering sums for gift shop sun cream or rinsing out our underwear in a hotel sink. 

In your case, you had paid £4,000 for you and a friend to visit the tropical island paradise of Mauritius, and were looking forward to spending long days on the beach and by the pool. Unfortunately, your things arrived ten days later than you did. 

Not knowing where in the world your stuff is is stressful, and traipsing around an unfamiliar place to pick up essential items can put a real dampener on a relaxing holiday. 

Unfortunately, airlines don’t tend to pay out much money when it happens. 

When you contacted me you mentioned that you thought you’d be covered by the Montreal Convention, an agreement forged in 1999 between the majority of countries across the world, which (among other things) sets out what airlines must do when baggage is delayed, lost or damaged.

Airlines are liable for baggage delays if it was their fault, and can pay up to 1,288 special drawing rights (the International Monetary Fund’s unit of accounting). That is approximately £1,360 at the time of writing).

However, this is a maximum, there is no minimum, and so airlines usually pay far less.

Next time, it may be worth taking out travel insurance which includes lost baggage cover. This would be much more likely to repay the cost of buying essential items than the airline’s compensation scheme.

That said, I do think the communication you’ve had from both Air Mauritius and its agent, Red Handling, has been exceptionally poor, and for this you do deserve some money back. 

Clearly customer service at the airline is as dead as the island’s famous Dodo. 

First, you were told on the plane that your bag was there, when it was not. 

And after you arrived in Mauritius, the next time someone contacted you about the lost bag was on day six of your holiday, when a company called World Tracer – employed by airlines to track down lost baggage – sent a text message asking you to describe the bag.

Six days is a long time when you are continually washing your few items of clothing in the hotel sink. 

You told me: ‘I wasted two beach days alone, hunting out a place for a couple of bits and pieces to wear and bathroom supplies in a town an hour away on ropey bus.

‘I had to do this trip twice to another town as the previous supermarket had very little my size, I had to use coloured underpants as shorts.

‘I didn’t want to buy lots of clothes as I have enough as a 76-year-old to last my life.’

No one from Air Mauritius or Red Handling – the firms responsible for losing your luggage in the first place – ever called to check whether the bag had arrived. 

Four days later, it did finally turn up at your hotel – just a few days before you headed home. 

But when you got home and tried to make a lost baggage claim, you found it hard to get a response out of Air Mauritius. 

The online form didn’t work, and you spent hours on hold on the phone to no avail. Red Handling simply directed you back to the airline.

You are far from alone in this experience, if reviews are anything to go by. 

A whopping 87 per cent of the airline’s 146 reviews on Trustpilot are one-star. Many say it’s impossible to get through on the phone, and that sometimes the line is engaged or they are hung up on.  

Others say that they have not been informed of flight delays or cancellations until they arrived at the airport. 

The firm’s automated email says customers can expect to wait 22 days for a response. 

And that is if they get through at all, as some Trustpilot reviewers say their emails have bounced back because the inbox is full. 

Air Mauritius has been bad at getting back to me, too – in fact I have been completely ignored, both by the airline and Red Handling. If I can’t persuade it to answer the phone, what hope do its customers have?

Over a period of several weeks I called Air Mauritius, emailed many times and even tweeted, none of which got any response – unless you count the scam accounts on Twitter spoofing airline employees and trying to get me to send my personal details. 

I do worry that desperate customers might be fooled by these. By not picking up the phone or answering emails, Air Mauritius is forcing them to vent their frustration on social media – and putting at significant risk. 

Red Handling doesn’t make its phone number public, so I have resorted to repeated emails which I know were received but again were ignored. 

That said, since I emailed it outlining your situation, Air Mauritius has approached you with several compensation offers. They began with £68, but the latest and ‘final’ offer is £143. 

You aren’t happy with this and I can understand why. 

It is nowhere near the £1,360 maximum they could pay, but it does at least cover your losses for the clothes and toiletries you bought in Mauritius – and a bit extra. 

The next step is to try complaining to the Civil Aviation Authority, which you are able to do as Air Mauritius is not a member of an alternative dispute resolution scheme.

If that doesn’t work, you could take it to the small claims court – though the costs of this would almost definitely outweigh those you incurred due to the delayed suitcase.

I’m glad you contacted me as I could warn other holidaymakers about the firm’s shoddy practices – and wish you good luck if you do decide to take this further.