Urgent Lost Baggage!!!!

[corcorans1]

Please can anyone help me. my son flew from stansted to newcastle on an internal flight to work as a DJ for the weekend. He had a electrical mixer machine which he took on board and was told to put his holdall in the fragile check in. It was covered in easyjet fragile labels and sent down the belt to be put on the plane. after a 50 min. flight he was first to wait for the 40 bagged luggage to come up the convayor but also his bag did not arrive.
he went to servisair desk who said "hopefully it will be on the next flight at 10pm if not so be it!!" and left him to it?
I have spent the whole day calling stansted swissport who are so so rude and also the management at newcastle and the out come is so far that stansted are saying it 100% went onto the aircraft and must be in newcastle (according to paperwork) and newcastle are saying it was not on the aircraft and i give them their due they have been looking and emailing all day long to stansted and all other airports about the bag.

The main problem is all his CD's for his work tonight were in the bag he has been told that he will be sacked tonight if they do not turn up. this now becomes serious because he has lost £500 for this weekend alone in wages and his job that he fought so hard to get.
Stansted airport have told him that if the bag does not turn up then he has to claim off his own insurance??
Does anyone know if this is true? why are they not responsible for the bag? What about his loss of earnings? i want the baggage handlers to pay for this incident big time why should they get away with it by fobbing it off and tell us to claim on our insurance.
they lost the bag not him
its been such a stressful day all around and I do not know where to start please please can somone help us.

many thanks

[ScarletPimpernel]

I suspect that this will prove difficult to resolve as you would like.

The airline are the people to contact, since they employ the baggage handlers, and it is with them that your son had a contract. Easyjet's terms and conditions state:

If your baggage is damaged, lost or delayed during an easyJet flight, you must advise a member of easyJet ground handling staff at the airport of arrival immediately.In the event of loss or damage to baggage the airline's liability is normally limited to a maximum of 1,000 Special Drawing Rights (approximately £820).
We will not be liable in any event in respect of loss or damage to
baggage which is not permitted to be carried (see "baggage" above).
Passengers are advised to take out their own insurance to cover the value of their baggage and its contents, particularly if they are carrying important or valuable items. Claims are dealt with up to the airline's legal limit of liability and must be supported by appropriate evidence of loss or damage.

What they say cannot be carried in checked baggage includes what they term 'valuables'.

Claiming from the airline will be much the same as dealing with an insurer; they are limits on how much they will pay, they will ask for proof of value and ownership, and they will attempt to reject claims if (for example) the bag wasn't suitable for its contents, or wasn't locked, and so on.

I doubt that either the airline or an insurer would accept responsibility for any consequential loss (such as loss of earnings).

In general, it will probably be quicker to claim off insurance, and let them pursue the airline. The PIR (property irregularity report) that your son should have got before leaving Newcastle Airport will be crucial, and it will be worth getting a photocopy.

[1stlifeline]

Sorry but I cant be more positive either as far as claiming is concerned. I have had 3 instances of lost baggage on flights.
In one case my bag did not arrive in France. I flew from Manchester to Belgium and when I got my connecting flight my bag didnt. However they were brilliant, it arrived on a flight 4 hours later and they put it in a taxi and delivered it to me 40 miles away from the airport at 11 o-clock the same night.

The second time a bag went missing returning from Spain - I never saw that one again.

The third time a bag went missing returning from Majorca. On that occasion I got it back a week later - it had been to Amsterdam!