Thanks Cate and all who helped. I have now spoken with Pam who called me back very quickly. Wonderful to have Pam and Ros there to help. However after our chat I am now no longer going to persue this as obviously being a terrorist attack both the airlines and insurance companies have a "get out".

I would still at least try your travel insurance as you have nothing to lose.

luci

I know they are rushed and stressed, but is there anyneed to throw! cases onto conveyer belts. Stood and observed this at schipol airport, whilst waiting to board our flight with easyjet to liverpool

They aren't supposed to throw luggage! It might have been worth mentioning it to one of the ground handling / gate supervisors.

Darren

never thought of that, it was our luggage as well, been loaded onto our flight, totally blatant.

See it happening all the time at Leeds/Bradford.

Sue

You can always ask for a fragile label but are generally ignored by the pressured/understaffed baggage handlers. Gate supervisors/dispatchers generally wont do anything about it in my experience. I've watched them pick up a set of bags tied together(WTF!!) with a fork lift truck and go through a fabric suitcase like they were cutting butter, the handlers just laughed!

Go buy the most expensive hard case you can. I spent a small fortune but it is worth every penny. Unless you are a regular traveller don't go overboard, but do get a genuine hard case, not one of those "soft" hard cases- the ones you can bend the plastic. Get one that is inflexible at the corners/tops/sides.

With the exception of losing your case, it removes all doubts and baggage problems you know everything will reach you intact!!!

Even when I go abroad for one night my "kitchen sink case" comes with me, and my baggage arrives in one piece... saying that, i'll be ranting on this forum next week that my case in wrecked!

cheers tom, we have a very good delsey, which is aincient, just bought some soft cases though, for when we are traveling light, delsey is great for long haul.

Weight is the problem with solid cases. I have given up using mine because of the cost of paying for excess baggage.

Sue

totally agree sue, we travelled on the mentioned flight and padi £7.08 for 20kg, in the end I swaped from big to medium soft case and saved 2kg, so dont know what the delsey would be. suppose if you are doing long hall, its better to buy the extra to accomodate a good secure case, either way the companies have you by the wallet (to put it nicely)

This will probably put the mockers on my luck but so far I've never had a case split and I always use the soft ones. I've travelled back from Australia with a very large pink nylon holdall which I bought out there, having sent much of my luggage home in advance, as unaccompanied baggage, and it was OK. Last year they managed to break the tow handle on one side of my case on the way back so I replaced it with a cheap 28" one from Tesco which cost about £12 and it has survived a couple of trips so far. The deciding factor was that it was very light, which is important with the measly 15kg allowance many airlines give us now.

We had good quality hard cases which were hard all round but one of ours must have been dropped because it had a crack across the corner so was no use for air travel. We didn't see it until we got home.

We have now gone back to soft cases which are lighter and are a little more flexible if dropped from a height. Ok I realise that they could get torn but you have to weigh up the pros and cons.

We do put two lockable bands around each case - not only do they hopefully keep things intact but because they have our name woven into them your luggage is easy to spot!

Pippa

weve got those Pippa.....need to get out more, kids think they are great with their names on, saw a hard case last year smashed to pieces when we arrived in Tunisia, certainly cant have been put on like that.

we went to Turkey a couple of weeks ago and found when we arrived that my case had a big split in it had to buy some new ones over there, wouldnt mind but the one that was split wass new

Did you complain before leaving the baggage hall? You ought to have got something from the airline.

I once found a 4 inch L shaped slash in the side of a soft case went it came off the belt a Munich. I'd already decided that the case was the wrong shape for dragging around on a touring holiday and intended changing it but to tide me over went to the office for some sticky tape to patch it up. After ten minutes of form filling I left with both the tape and more cash than the case had cost new! Apparently Lufthansa based their compensation for damage on the weight, even though nothing inside was damaged.

I did not bother filling in the forms as the insurance would not have paid up as the excess is £50 so I got some really good cases in Turkey

But my point was that the airline should have paid - your insurance would have been a last resort, and as you say probably not worth it in that example. The woman at Lufthansa actually asked me if I was insured but I told her no.

i should have complained but it was the beginning of my holiday so i was too excited to bother, if anthing had been stolen out of it like last year i would have done something about it, but that was another story where my padlocks had been cut off and my suitcase ransacked

Are we encouraged to put locks on or not? I have always put them on, but my brother returned from crete this week to find the zip on his suitcase actually cut off? He had a lock on his so somebody (whether it be airport staff or not) has cut through the actual zip to get the lock off and to look in the suitcase. So now in the future he cant even put a lock on if he wants to because the zip is cut. It was left very sharp, i think this is abit cheeky especially as nobody told him that this had been done, there were no tags or stickers put on the suitcase to say it had been searched, if it was airport staff.

Im flying to paphos tomorrow and dont want my zips cut off! Do you think i should just not put a lock on at all?