I must have all the luck! Anytime I go on an international trip, I'm always having so many issues that I am expecting things to happen regardless... 

Despite my being barely packed until the last minute before my departure time, I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, thanks to the help of my friends! The plane took off, and less than half hour later, just as I was dozing off - I heard the calm but unexpected announcement from  pilot: 

"There is nothing to be concerned. It’s only an act of being cautious.” 

What does that mean?

“One of our redundant hydraulic press switches is not functioning. It’s just a redundant one. We are in no danger. 

There is nothing to be concerned about. We are returning to Boston.” 

The quickest round trip I ever made on any flights

Finally, the parts were replaced, and we are off again. Arrived at London airport more than three hours behind schedule, I thoroughly missed my connection to JetAirways. After being sent back forth multiple times between terminals and counters, I was finally booked on the next Qatar Airline flight 12, taking off to Doha, Qatar 3 hours later, then arrive at KTM (Kathmandu) 2 hours behind my original schedule. Not too bad. 

“What about my luggage??” 

American Airlines replied, “We will send a message to JetAirways to send them to Qatar”

I was not convinced and doubled checked with Qatar, “We will send a message to JetAirways to send the luggage to us”.

“Message”, apparently the modern way of communication, is a message sent between computer systems without needing any human interaction.

Service on Qatar Airline was excellent, and food was delicious. It was interesting to stop by Qatar, a country I never really knew. The airport was clean and modern, and I don’t have to worry about spending a night in Mumbai airport anymore, my original route. 

Doha is a very busy airport, flights from all over the world are taking off around the clock, so it was quite noisy throughout the night, with only a couple hours quieter moment between 2:30-4am.  I stayed up all night working on my computer, catching up the writings I haven’t been able to do while busy packing and moving during the past few weeks.

While waiting for the luggage at KTM airport, I was talking to myself, it would a nice surprise to see my luggage, because my luggage has never arrived with me when I missed the connection during my past trips. But I didn’t want to give up too early and dutifully waited until the conveyer belt completely stopped, then filed the missing report.

In the evening, my friend Lily Chou in Boston, also helped me to contact my travel insurance agent to help trace the luggage. But airline service in Nepal does not work around the clock, so there is no way to talk to anyone before the next day, and it’s very difficult to make international phone calls from here. 

The next day, Jangbu Sherpa, who is leading our Sherpa service in Nepal, sent his staff back to the airport a few times, and we pestered Qatar airlines. By 4pm in the afternoon, Qatar said they have sent three “messages” to London office but have no idea where is the luggage. 

Now I begin to suspect that a “message” is just a message in the system, and does not really mean that anyone is reading it. Then I also remembered that when I filed for a missing report at airport, there was no computer at the counter. All I got was a piece of paper with hard-to-read handwritten forms, no claim number. Now, I am not even confident if the “system” knows about the missing luggage.

So I started to bombard each airline office in Nepal with phone calls, had Lily and travel insurance agent inquire through their international offices. There are three airlines involved, American Airline, JetAIrways (India) and Qatar Airlines. 

Each of them tried to direct me to others, suggesting the other airlines should have the information in their system. How can no one have information about my luggage in their system? But seems Qatar is the one ultimate responsible to trace down the luggage. So I called Qatar again, 

“What do you mean you don’t know where is my luggage?” 

“We can’t see it in our system. We have sent three messages to London, no reply”. 

That is not acceptable! So I suggested them to talk to a human on that side, not the automatic message in the system, which it seems that no one is reading the message. They finally made a phone call, and still don’t know where it was! So I suggested them to have a “human” look for the luggage!

Finally, a few more rounds of phone calls later, they confirmed that they found the luggage in London in the hand of JetAirways. Apparently, no human really read those system messages until an actual person talked to someone else and had another person looking for the luggage! 

No matter how many ways we modernize our system, it still takes a human being to do the actual work. Modern technology can’t replace human. Lessons learned, don’t assume anyone is looking for the luggage without being really persistent, and should have inquired through their international office directly when local office would simply go home after 5pm.