Lost Luggage

This is nothing personal against American Airlines -- on second thought, yes, it is.

When I fly, it's almost exclusively with Southwest Airlines. Saturday, I had to use American because of a Kiwanis Mid-Winter Conference at the Marriott at D-FW Airport. Since Southwest doesn't fly to D-FW, American it was.

So it's the American Eagle. It's a simple one-hour flight from Amarillo to D-FW at 7:35 a.m. Saturday. I checked in one bag at 6:50 a.m. I didn't have all the plastic bags for the small toiletries to go in that allows a carry-on, so I checked it in.

First, I forgot about the wonderful $15 charge per bag that American does -- and $25 for a second bag, and $100 for three. Lovely.

All right, whatever. But then when I get to D-FW, my bag is not there. Neither is another passenger who said he was there at 6 a.m. How do you lose luggage on a simple one-stop flight from Amarillo to D-FW? Isn't luggage supposed to be lost on connecting flights, something like that?

That's what we wanted to know as we filed a lost baggage claim. At noon, no bags. At 2 p.m., they eventually tracked mine down and it was delivered to the hotel by 4:30 p.m. No harm, no foul, I guess. But do you think American might want to refund $15 as a show of customer service for the inconvenience?

Oh, no. Not going to happen. As one guy told me Saturday, "I got one word for you -- Southwest."

Amen, brother.