Thanks, Delta

Hey everyone! I'm looking for your advice. My partner traveled via Delta to another city for a wedding 1-2 weekends ago. She had a carry-on sized camera bag with her and somehow through Delta's employee incompetence, they made her check in the bag due to room limitations on the plane.

Well, her Nikon 70-200 2.8 VR and 24-70 2.8 were both damaged when she pulled them out to shoot the wedding... Everything shot with the 70-200 was nearly unusable due to it being unable to focus & zoom. Her 24-70 seems to have something cracked internally as it's causing some weird reversed reflection on dark areas of the image near the center.

NPS billed her over $700 for repairs just for the 70-200 and her 24-70 needs to be shipped out as well. She's covered under PPA and Delta is going to be extremely difficult to work with for reimbursement. She's spoken to Delta several times and will be getting advice from NPS since we're sure they've dealt with similar issues.

With that said, what would you guys do in this situation? Being that her equipment was damaged which caused performance issues during the wedding, would that justify legal action as well? As long as we can get the damages covered, we're happy but it also stinks that our clients would also be at the short end of the stick with less photos due to this issue. We'll be contacting PPA for additional advice.

For such a new company, set backs like this definitely can add a lot of stress! Thanks for the input, everyone!

This doesn't help you now, but I would never let them check my camera bag. I'd rather get a different flight. My son had his camera and lens stolen out of his checked bag, and the bag showed up at O'hare 3 days later minus anything of value.

Chris wrote in post #14209686
This doesn't help you now, but I would never let them check my camera bag. I'd rather get a different flight. My son had his camera and lens stolen out of his checked bag, and the bag showed up at O'hare 3 days later minus anything of value.

Thanks for the reply. In hindsight, we should have done that but when you're under a time crunch and the assignment is in the AM, it's hard to make quick decisions like that.

At the end of the day, don't check your camera bags in! Unless they're tightly locked inside of a pelican case that is...

My guess (and since I'm not a lawyer, that's all it is) is that her chances are between slim and none for collecting any incidental or consequential damages. I hope she can get paid for the actual damages (the repair bills).

Holy crap! assuming this was a good, padded camera bag, they would have to run over it with a truck to do that kind of damage.

Curtis N wrote in post #14209718
My guess (and since I'm not a lawyer, that's all it is) is that her chances are between slim and none for collecting any incidental or consequential damages. I hope she can get paid for the actual damages (the repair bills).

Holy crap! assuming this was a good, padded camera bag, they would have to run over it with a truck to do that kind of damage.

It'll definitely be difficult going against a large company! All we want is the repairs covered. She has a higher end, TSA approved rolling bag so yes, they must have used it as a punching bag!

I had similar situation three months ago on the flight with checked in camera bag. Both camera and lens was damaged costing me 850 bucks. Fortunately I purchased $5 bucks inflight insurance from my AMEX card (I hight recommend this insurance if you have AMEX) and AMEX actually gave me the repair cost back. I also notified the airline, it was Airtran, they said they will not cover anything. In your situation I would go after the Airline until they take the responsibility for the repair cost. Sorry to hear this.

ashikuli1 wrote in post #14209758
I had similar situation three months ago on the flight with checked in camera bag. Both camera and lens was damaged costing me 850 bucks. Fortunately I purchased $5 bucks inflight insurance from my AMEX card (I hight recommend this insurance if you have AMEX) and AMEX actually gave me the repair cost back. I also notified the airline, it was Airtran, they said they will not cover anything. In your situation I would go after the Airline until they take the responsibility for the repair cost. Sorry to hear this.

I see. If only we could solve the situation your way! We'll definitely be hounding Delta.

It was their fault for the damages, too! My partner's flight was overbooked so they made her gate check it. They told her she would be able to pick up the bag once she exits the plane but they brought it to the carousel. She had brought it to their attention what was in the bag, too.

Chris wrote in post #14209686
This doesn't help you now, but I would never let them check my camera bag. I'd rather get a different flight. My son had his camera and lens stolen out of his checked bag, and the bag showed up at O'hare 3 days later minus anything of value.

This!

I would also suggest never taking the last flight of the day out of town - it limits your options if you need to be somewhere the next morning.

Of course hindsight is 20/20 - best of luck getting your issue resolved (but I'm betting you'll get nothing from Delta)

smacatl wrote in post #14209806
This!

I would also suggest never taking the last flight of the day out of town - it limits your options if you need to be somewhere the next morning.

Of course hindsight is 20/20 - best of luck getting your issue resolved (but I'm betting you'll get nothing from Delta)

Thanks! We'll definitely plan better in the future. That and get some pelican cases.

Curtis N wrote in post #14209718
My guess (and since I'm not a lawyer, that's all it is) is that her chances are between slim and none for collecting any incidental or consequential damages. I hope she can get paid for the actual damages (the repair bills).

Holy crap! assuming this was a good, padded camera bag, they would have to run over it with a truck to do that kind of damage.

EOSBoy wrote in post #14209754
It'll definitely be difficult going against a large company! All we want is the repairs covered. She has a higher end, TSA approved rolling bag so yes, they must have used it as a punching bag!

Have you ever seen how bags get treated during transfer from airplane to carousel or vise versa? 22 years of working for an airline and still haven't seen it all. It gets pretty rough. I would never check my camera bag no matter what airline unless it's gorilla proof.


?

I travel relatively often for my primary occupation. Upon returning home from a trip almost a year ago , I found that my Garmin GPS had been removed from my checked luggage. I immediately contacted Delta and filed a claim. After a few days I got the following response (which I believe would also apply to your situation):

"The tariff rules and the ticket contract covering your travel exclude responsibility for jewelry, cash, camera equipment, electronic equipment, or computer equipment contained in checked or unchecked baggage."

Good luck getting them to cover the expenses. For what it's worth, they did end up providing me with $200 Delta dollars (equal to the value of the GPS unit), which had to be used within a year, and the ticket had to be purchased directly through Delta. The only way for me to use this was to book a vacation...

drvnbysound wrote in post #14210156
"The tariff rules and the ticket contract covering your travel exclude responsibility for jewelry, cash, camera equipment, electronic equipment, or computer equipment contained in checked or unchecked baggage."

Yep this is exactly the sort of thing the OP can expect the airline to say - however a court might view things differently in this case because they forced his partner to check the bag instead of carrying it on. Of course they will then resort to saying it was improperly packed or that the contents should have been wrapped in protective bandaged taken from a 3,000 year old mummy.

Fact is the OP is lucky to get the kit back at all. I realise there are millions of bags going through FJK each day but it is still not acceptable that 200 bags a day are being stolen linky to CBS Story. Plus of course if you fly JFK to Boston you have the same risk again at the other end of your trip where your bag must run the gauntlet again - another linky.

Also, based on the wording of the OP, it sound as if the damage wasn't spotted until they got to their final destination. The airline may well claim that, as the damage wasn't reported at the airport, they can't accept liability because the damage could have occurred after the bag left the airport. Personally, if I had been forced to check kit like that, I would have had the bag open in the baggage hall in front of the airline rep and checked everything.

I travel pretty extensively and just about every time I go I have more gear than I can legally carry on an aircraft. You have to realize too that the airlines being hit hard during these times just like everyone else so might not see an aircraft that has an overhead that can take your roller-board camera bag. They will do aircraft substitutions as market demands and maintenance requirements. I always say it on here when it comes to traveling with gear, plan for the worst case and hope for the best. I pack my gear in a hard sided Samsonite suitcase and it is well padded with either additional cases or my personal articles. I have traveled to several different continents and pretty much all over north America like this and I have yet to have one problem. No broken lenses, no lost luggage, nothing. I guess I am lucky. Even my carry-on is packed in such a fashion that if they declare no carry-on it would definitely survive the trip underneath. It does happen that they can declare no carry-on beyond a women's purse. I was traveling from Canada to the US about 18 months ago and there was a scare somewhere in the US and the TSA declared no carry-on baggage on inbound flights to the US or wholly within the US. I had no choice but to turn over my camera bag but I also have it equipped with TSA padlocks so only they are going to get in it unless someone breaks the lock.

Certainly the airline has responsibilities but so do we as passengers. They have certain limits of liability and will use it in these times of restraint unless you happen to be a frequent flyer with at a high level. This situation was probably totally avoidable and I feel for the person it happened to.

You certainly are not going to be able to hold the airline responsible for any losses due to damage. Trust me they have that covered too. I would simply take my lumps, get what I could from the airline and claim the balance on insurance. It is a good learning experience and I could bet the person traveling will be better informed and prepared for their next trip.

I have seen pelican cases completed destroyed by airlines, I think I would trust UPS or FedEX befre I would trust checking it on a plane

Tigershark wrote in post #14214049
I have seen pelican cases completed destroyed by airlines, I think I would trust UPS or FedEX befre I would trust checking it on a plane

Passenger carrier, UPS, FedEx... the process is really pretty much the same, just a different paint scheme on the airplane.

People throwing stuff around, cramming big packages into small holes, conveyors that drop things into piles, stuff falling off carts and getting run over, etc.

And the workers are always under pressure to move a pile of stuff from point A to point B in the shortest possible time. It's a process designed for efficiency, not quality.