I recently took a trip on an Aeromexico flight from Buenos Aires to Chicago, with an overnight stop in Mexico City. The overnight stop was the beginning of my troubled encounter.
Because i was moving back to the U.S. I had all of my personal belongings, which was not much but included two laptops (mine and my girlfriends) and all of my camera gear. When i landed in Mexico City i was faced with the decision of how to manage my valuables.in order to diversify my risk and not walk out into the city with everything of value on my person, i made the decision to check one of my laptops in the bag that would be placed on my flight the next day to Chicago.
I realized this was a risk as i have seen the "care" baggage handlers take with luggage but i never thought i was risking theft by the airline. I padded my computer as well as i could within my clothes as to avoid damage and handed it off to the employees of Aeromexico.
When i arrived in Chicago and received my bag, i found it to have been rummage through then put back together with care minus my computer and charger, which were in separate compartments, indicating that the employees of Aeromexico had plenty of time to pick and choose what it was they wanted to steal from my bag.
After explaining that i was missing an expensive portion of my luggage to the manager at O'Hare airport, i was told there was nothing that could be done there and i would have to contact their customer service center online. After contacting their online dept i received a response saying I would have needed to have spoken with representatives at the airport "in a timely fashion" which had concluded by the time i wrote the email one day later.
Then after explaining the run-around in another email i received a response saying that the airline is not responsible for anything of value in my bag. Although i understand a policy that removes responsibility for the care taken of my luggage, so as not to leave the airline at fault if something is damaged in transit, i certainly don't understand the right to remove, as they see fit, anything of value Aeromexico finds within my luggage.
Even with their policy in place, it seems that a felony theft would be handled with more interest by a company who employs the criminal than to simply write it off as not their responsibility. Not sure where to go from here, it seems in any other circumstance i would be filing a police report but i'm afraid i'd be laughed out of the precinct building after naming the suspect.
I'm sure their policy completely absolves them of any responsibility in the matter but it's a hard to imagine just accepting the robbery as no one's responsibility. Not sure what else to do but shed some light to a policy that seems irrational to me.
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