Phone sets missing from Emirates passenger’s luggage

Staff Correspondent: A Business Class passenger of Emirates Airlines lost four expensive mobile phone sets and got his luggage mutilated and the goods in a desultory order.  

Uday Hakim, a top official of the leading Bangladeshi brand Walton, was travelling on the EK585 flight of Emirates Airlines from Dhaka to Dubai and later on the EK011 flight of the same airline from Dubai to London on August 25 on his way to Saint Kitts in West Indies.

The phone sets were being carried to West Indies to be presented to the players of the matches of ongoing cricket series between Bangladesh and West Indies. Walton is the co-sponsor of the cricket series.

Before boarding on the EK585 flight of Emirates Airlines at Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, security scanning officials asked Hakim about the phone sets he was carrying in his luggage. They were satisfied and said ‘Good’ to Hakim as he said that the sets were being taken to West Indies to be presented to the players of the matches of ongoing cricket series between Bangladesh and West Indies.

But a female official at the counter of Business Class desk of Emirates Airlines rendered Hakim only two boarding passes for Dhaka to Dubai and Dubai to London flights. ‘What about the other boarding passes?’ Hakim asked showing his ticket from London to Antigua.

The female official told Hakim to inquire about it while he would board on the plane. ‘I’ll be there then,’ she said. But Hakim did not find her there.

After landing at Gatwick Airport in London, Hakim had to collect his remaining boarding passes from the counter of British Airways, in which he was travelling to Antigua. ‘What about my luggage?’ Hakim asked the officers at the counter.

They told Hakim that he had to collect his luggage from the airport passing through the immigration area. ‘Your luggage would fly directly to Antigua if you collected the boarding passes from Dhaka,’ the official told Hakim.

Hakim had exactly asked for the boarding passes to the female staff of Emirates Airlines in Dhaka which she did not provide. He had no way but to collect his luggage from Gatwick Airport. But there waiting a big surprise for him as Hakim found his bag mutilated and the goods in a desultory order and most surprisingly four expensive mobile phone sets made by Walton missing.

Hakim went to the Complaint Desk at Gatwick Airport but failed to get proper solution from them. The two officials who were sitting on the Complaint Desk asked Hakim to write his name, address and phone number on a sheet of white paper and told him to complain to the police giving him some papers. But they were unable to answer him to which country’s police he would complain.

Confused and distraught Hakim left the Gatwick Airport for Antigua taking the mutilated luggage without any clue of the missing phone sets.

risingbd/Aug 30, 2014/Uday/Augustin Sujan