Had a flight from ORD-FRA-RUH (Riyadh). First leg operated by UA, second leg operated by LH.

Due to the delays on Friday my flight on UA to Frankfurt was a few hours late, so was going to miss the connection. I get auto booked, I assume by United, during my ORD-FRA flight, on LH flight to DXB, then Emirates flight to RUH.



In FRA, LH gate agent says their system can�t see if bag will be checked through, I assume, this is still one ticket based on what I can see from United, so probably has to be. Get on flight to DXB, checked bag is with me on this flight, via air tag. More delays lead to tight connection in DXB, and on LH flight we are told by FA to go right to our gate (has little sheet of tight connections). We barely make it, but Emirates says no checked bag associated with my name. Arrive in RUH, no bag.

I can see via air tag that my checked bag is still in Dubai, possibly in the unclaimed baggage area. I don�t think I could�ve been changed to be booked on separate tickets without informing me in writing somewhere, when originally the bag was checked all the way through to Riyadh, but idk, maybe they did.(idk if it was United or Lufthansa either)


So now who is responsible to get my bag back?(especially if it is land side):

UA: if they�re the ones who auto rebooked me

LH: who had my bag but failed to get it to Emirates

Emirates: as they were the final operator, but what if they weren�t given the bag?

Me: if the bag wasn�t checked through and went land side theoretically I should�ve gone through customs and rechecked it, though I don�t know how I would�ve known I needed to do this? (Especially since when I first dropped off bag in ord, it was checked through to Riyadh).

Any thoughts or insight would be appreciated.

 

1.Have you checked your ticket after the changes? If not, can you do it now?
2.Most likely your EK leg is part of the ticket. It would be rather rare to see a completely new ticket booked just for one leg.
3.Did you show your baggage stub to the EK check in staff? If yes, what did they say?
4.Did you report the missing baggage to EK at the final destination? Did you get a file number/record locator/whatever confirmation?
4.I would bet my money on EK being in charge to get the bag back to you.

 

I was able to find the ticket for emirates. It shows FRA-DXB (operated by Lufthansa) and DXB-RUH together under one booking reference number, so definitely not actual separate legs. I�ve gotten in touch with emirates (after Lufthansa said it wasn�t their problem), so maybe it will get resolved soonish. Still have to guess, since the bag hasn�t been put on another plane yet and it�s non-moving air tag location in terminal 1 (which Lufthansa operates out of, not Emirates), that it didn�t register as checking through to RUH for some reason and came out at the baggage carousel in DXB.

 

A single PNR is a good sign but you are only protected if it is a single ticket (same number). Getting in touch is a start and hopefully things are straightened out soon. If EK takes responsibility, fine. If they start fingerpointing make sure to have your paperwork in order to avoid running in circles. Make it as formal as possible with EK. Get your hand on file numbers and codes and anything written just in case.

 

EK is responsible for delivering the bag(s) to you.

 

Closing this out. Got my bags back (so 72 hour delay).

The final answer, or solution, was Lufthansa. How I got it to work was submitting a delayed bag form through them only listing the FRA-DXB flight (as if I included the follow on flight to Riyadh they said it was Emirates problem) and that got them to locate it, at which point they figured out it should�ve gone on to RUH. They put in on an Emirates flight, but I picked it up from the baggage area in the terminal Lufthansa flies into (and not Emirates) in Riyadh. Never had anything in writing from Emirates, only Lufthansa.

Thanks all for the advice!