Lost Luggage with Norwegian Air, filled PIR but no bag tags

Question

Back in July on a trip from London to Amman Jordan (stopping over in Copenhagen), our luggage never made it to Amman, and it was deemed lost. We filled the PIR but we misplaced our bag tags (this was due to an extremely lengthy search that was done just before boarding the plane in Copenhagen when we somehow misplaced the tags, and they were lost.

I filed for a claim for the 3 bags that were lost, and Norwegian came back with the following: "When checking in baggage with Norwegian you will receive a baggage tag as a proof for the checked bag and if a baggage is delayed, you must present that tag to our representatives at arrival.

When you reported delayed baggage in Amman, you could not provide our agents with a receipt for a checked baggage, but our agents created a report for search. According to the information in our check-in system, you checked 3 bags and those bags was loaded on the aircraft.

Since you didn't provide our agents with any tags at arrival and that the baggage was loaded, we cannot accept your claim for lost baggage"

Can anyone tell me if Norwegian have gotten away with it based on this? Can they not be forced to accept liability for losing our 3 bags? Please help.

Answer 1

The baggage receipt is a small document on sticky paper and usually stuck to your boarding pass or (most irritatingly) the back of the passport.

This sounds like a typical ploy by a low cost airline to reduce its liability and, essentially, make you go away. The carrier’s liability is set out in the Montréal Convention article 17(2). The operating carrier is strictly liable for loss or damage to bags in its care or its agents care up to a maximum value of approximately 1500 USD (the exact value is denominated in a basket of currencies and varies a bit every day). The bags are presumed lost if they are not delivered to the passenger within twenty-one days. The convention invalidates any contract clause that interferes with the air carrier’s liability as defined under the convention.

It doesn’t appear to me that the carrier can impose arbitrary documentation requirements, although I can see they could reasonably ask for proof the bags are yours, a task for which the baggage receipt is intended. However, since the carrier was able to identify your bags, from their records, I don’t see what further information the baggage receipt would provide them.

Assuming you are a UK resident, I would send a “letter before action” by recorded post to the carrier’s office in the UK, setting out the value of the articles lost, referencing the carrier’s acknowledgement that they loaded the bags (which seems a mistake, they should have said they had no record of your bags), and stating that you expect to be compensated for the loss per the Convention. Do not mention the receipts unless you find them. Keep the letter brief, polite, and factual; provide the necessary information to identify you and your journey, including the PIR you obtained in Amman; do not make complaints or emotive statements. You can find templates for “letter before action” on many websites.

If you need to proceed to any kind of formal legal claim, do you research and take advice.