Charlotte Foster
Travel Trouble

Qantas loses woman's luggage that contains her mother's ashes

A woman has been left "non-functional with distress" after Qantas lost her luggage which contained her mother's ashes. 

On a flight from London to Sydney, the woman and her partner were confused when they were still waiting for their luggage to turn up at Sydney Airport several hours later. 

Women’s Community Shelters chief executive and Domestic Violence NSW chair Annabelle Daniel expressed her frustration on Twitter after she and her partner had not heard back from the airline when they reached out to enquire about the lost bag. 

“Hey @Qantas, my partner‘s bag is four days late from QF2 on Saturday morning,” she posted on Wednesday night in a now-deleted tweet. 

"It has her mother’s ashes in it. She wasn’t able to see her mum before she died, or attend the funeral in 2020 due to the pandemic."

“No responses from your website. Could you help more please?”

The tweets attracted the attention of several shocked Twitter users, as Annabelle described how the situation was effecting her distraught partner. 

“My partner was so close to her mum and just devastated she couldn’t travel to be with her when she died. Watching your mum’s funeral on Zoom is gut wrenching enough, let alone this,” she wrote.

“She’s not the kind of person to make a fuss, but this compounds the grief all over again."

“She’s quite non-functional with distress. I very much hope this is sorted out."

“She’s so anxious and this has just been a horror show.” 

The Qantas Twitter account responded to Annabelle and asked for further details so they could sort out the issue. 

In a statement to NCA NewsWire, an airline spokesperson apologised for the “extremely distressing situation” and said the bag was being sent to the woman on Thursday. 

“We understand that this is an extremely distressing situation for this customer and have apologised for the delay in getting their bags to them,” the Qantas spokesperson said.

“The bag is being couriered to the customer today (Thursday)."

“Heathrow Airport has had widely publicised baggage issues over recent days which led to tens of thousands of misplaced bags.”

Airports all over the world have been making headlines for long queues, baggage losses and dallied flights as eager travellers jet off freely for the first time since the start of the pandemic, putting unprecedented strain on air travel. 

Image credits: Getty Images

Tags:
travel trouble, luggage, lost, Qantas, ashes