My Suitcase’s Bizarre Journey

As I told you about yesterday, on my return from vacation I made it home safely and promptly - my luggage didn't. Thankfully, it arrived late last night, but it seems to have taken a strange journey in the meantime.

There were a few factors that likely lead to my missing suitcase - first, I had a very tight connection between flights of only about an hour. I'd actually prepared myself before my trip that my suitcase may not make it right away.

It was also, of course, a major travel weekend, with many people returning home from their Christmas and New Year's trips.

On top of that, the extreme weather in the middle of the U.S. caused many travel delays and an influx of stranded passengers (and luggage).

In the end, it was a perfect situation to lose luggage in.

While I wasn't happy with the lack of communication and customer service from Air Canada (and I'm still not), I do appreciate that my luggage made it back to me intact and undamaged. But the path that it took back home seems pretty strange.

My original trip was from Vancouver (YVR) to Toronto (YYZ), and finally Philadelphia (PHL). It would seem that my bag made it from YVR to YYZ, but that's where things got strange. The tags that were attached to my bag when it got to me tell the rest of the odyssey.

While I was assured that my bag would be on the very next flight to Philly, it appears that it took an unexplained detour to Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW), with a connection through Washington, DC (IAD), and then finally on to Philly, where it belonged in the first place.

I won't claim to know how airlines work and how they decide how to route "delayed luggage" (I've learned over the past three days that they don't like to say "lost luggage"), but that seems like a pretty round about path back to my possession.

But, in the end, at least I have it. At least everything is in it. And at least the bag itself (a not-cheap Samsonite suitcase) is undamaged.