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Puke alert.

The boy flew from San Diego to D.C. this weekend for the wedding of his GF’s college roomie. In usual AJ fashion, he stashed everything but his suit (which he carried on) into a huge Abercrombie & Fitch duffel bag so he would only have a carryon. When full the thing stands about 3’ tall.

At check-in at Dulles on the way back, they made him check the bag. No biggie; it sometimes happens.

He gets to the carousel in San Diego to wait for his bag when the woman next to him picks up her bags and says “OMG! My bags smell like fish!” He’s thinking – great…where’s mine?

Yep, he gets his the next couple of go arounds and bam, the thing smells like fish guts. It reeks, it’s soaked around the whole outside with this stuff. He opens the side pockets where he has his ties – they’re soaked and trashed. He opens the bag and most of his clothes are saturated. His nice leather toiletries bag is soaked and reeks. EVERYTHING in the bag smells.

He goes to the counter along with the other folks (the line eventually went down an entire hallway) and the clerk says “Yeah, it’s not us – that happened in Dulles. It happens a couple, two times a week, I’d say.” No further explanation offered.

Say what? The one airport in the country that you would think would have all its bells and whistles cranking on all cylinders in terms of security and things such as fish fluids leaking from some unknown source has a mysterious fish order baggage issue?

He was pissed. Had to do laundry at 11 p.m. (anyone with a son knows how dreadful this was), took his ties and other dress clothes to the dry cleaner to the tune of $90 and the bag to a luggage repair shop hoping they can remedy it. They did tell him not to be too hopeful – they’re not sure they can get the smell completely out. The worst part? A&E no longer makes that type of duffel bag nor are the bags they make as durable. He’s had the thing since college.

He’s filed a claim with the airline (the one with two capital letters) and is waiting to hear from the luggage store.

Geez, Louise.

Poor kid!

AJ’s MOM

As my gay bff says....Girlllll, I'd have to pull my bitch out of my purse and slap em' with it.

[This message edited by lieshurt at 3:53 PM, September 10th (Tuesday)]

ACK!!! Good luck!!!!

When a major carrier lost our luggage on our way to Italy, we had to replace most of our clothes. I kept all our receipts and files a claim once we were back home. We spent close to $1000.00 on new clothes but the airline was only obligated to reimburse up to $250.00!!

The only thing that saved my head from popping off was that the clothes and shoes were beautiful and Italian made

I hope he has better luck than us!!

Eww- that is just gross.

Nothing worse than fish rot smell. The concerning thing is that it is a regular occurance, why? Are they transporting seafood? If so why is it leaking, who is buying said seafood. Oh blech. No fish for me this week, unless it's some I caught myself.

Seeing it was a direct flight to San Diego, I suppose they could have been transporting seafood from D.C. there, but it seems unlikely.

The clerk in San Diego was adamant it happened in D.C. How is the mystery.

XH and I had our luggage lost on our honeymoon and Delta reimbursed us for close to a thousand dollars in clothes we bought, even though they were only obligated to reimburse something like $300. We submitted all the receipts and a letter of complaint saying they ruined our honeymoon (it took them 5 days to get our luggage to us on our Caribbean cruise) and three weeks later we got a check in the mail.

PUKE! They would SO be remeding that situation! GEEZ!!!!

Is he familiar with the "United Breaks Guitars" song? If they hose him, he should follow the method!

The clerk in San Diego was adamant it happened in D.C.

I've never even been to D.C. However, I saw this interesting thread about brake pads on the Metro there and just wondered whether it might explain the clerk's certainty over the provenance of the smell.

http://unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/whats-that-foul-smell.html

Hope the cleaner manages to get it out of the bag. I find even the kitchen odor of cooked fish loathsome.

Hmmm... Something smells fishy to me.

I have a hard time believing that luggage from dulles gets soaked with fish guts twice a week! I've never heard anything about that?!?

Sounds like the airline might have been at fault and was told to make up a story fast!

Sorry about your sons luggage :-(

One time when I was flying on American Eagle on a business trip we were all on the plane ready to take off when the pilot said, "wait! There was a bird strike on the way in, everyone off the plane, it has to go to maintenence." We watched while all the luggage was unloaded and left on the tarmack for TWO HOURS in pouring down rain before the plane came back and everyone reboarded and the luggage was put back. Everyone who had dry cleaning caliber clothes had them ruined. The airline refused to help because a bird strike is evidently an act of God! I'm just lucky I'm a dressed down sort of doctor and none of my cotton boring clothes were affected!

I like to call American: AmeriCAN'T