A good airline customer service experience with Continental
I recently returned for a trip to Austin with my family to discover that the check bag containing the car seats for my children had been lost in transit. I had somewhat expected something to happen as I hadn’t seen the bag on the luggage cart full of bags to be loaded onto the plane while our other bags were clearly visible. I was looking because when we went to check-in in Austin they told me to take the car seats to the TSA Oversized Luggage screening area (and berated me for putting car seats in a bag rather than bringing them unwrapped to be put in the complimentary clear plastic bag they provide). The single TSA agent was already talking to three adults and a pile of kids while checking their luggage, two large coolers and two rifle cases. He told me that “since your bag isn’t fire arms I don’t need you to wait” and assured me that there would be plenty of time to get the bag on my flight.
Getting back to the story after waiting for all the bags to show up I talked to the luggage office who not only filled out the lost luggage form but also provide me with relatively new (< 3 months) loaner car seats of the appropriate sizes and offered an apology.
The bag was delivered the next afternoon and exchanged for the loaners. I think its important to recognize this sort of customer service and planning (having the car seats to loan) as it happens far to infrequently.