I have made it to Newark safely (thank goodness). The ONE bag I checked (and the bags of half the other passengers on the plane) have not. US AIRWAYS LOST MY BAG ON A DOMESTIC FLIGHT. Apparently, my bags and those of my fellow passengers were not put on our connecting flight from Philadelphia (PHL) to Newark (EWR).

Here is a brief rundown of events:
-My flight (2846) lands on-time at 9:15 despite taking off 30 minutes late. We are forced to wait on the tarmac for 40 minutes while they try to decide what terminal to put us in (F27, our terminal was taken).
-The plane is put in terminal F29. The flight attendant tells us that our bags will automatically be transferred (I ask him again on my way out to be sure). I disembark and immediately walk to the terminal of my connecting flight in time to make it to the middle of the boarding for that flight (great timing). I worry about my bag making it over in time for take-off until the flight attendant announces that take-off is postponed in order to let 10 passengers from a connecting flight make it over in time to board.
-20 minutes later, at 11:40pm I disembark and meet my aunt at the luggage retrieval. We spend 20 minutes watching bags go round and round as a line forms at the lost baggage office (yes, there was a US Airways lost baggage OFFICE staffed with two people…. not a good sign). Half the passengers from my flight end up in the line. One guy traveling with his family was missing FIVE bags/suitcases.
-After an interminable wait in a fairly short lineInformation about my bag is taken, and I am given a record of the baggage claim along with a brochure on the apporpriate numbers to call. It is now almost 2AM. We drive home.
-I am told that once my bags are located, they will be delivered to me at my Aunt’s house. So for the time being, I have nothing except the clothes on my back, my cell phone, and a portable DVD player. LUCKILY, I had not checked my winter coat and hat… but i have no toothbrush or change of clothes… or the PS2 I had packed (which BETTER be there when my bag arrives).
-I spend the next day calling the automated line before I track down the phone number for the lost baggage office in EWR airport and the phone number for Deborah Thompson, the Director of Customer Affairs. The workers in the lost baggage office are curt, almost to the point of rudeness. I call on Mrs.Thompson, but get no answer, so I leave a message on her voicemail. Subsequent web-sleuthing reveals that the one flight from PHL to EWR (which theoretically could have ferried the bags to us) that day was canceled. The reason given was inclement weather, but rain in these areas was light.

So now its 9:26, 22 hours after my flight landed. According to flight schedules, the first flight from PHL to EWR lands at 10:30AM, with 2 more flights throughout the day. So, hopefully my things will arrive. I hadn’t originally planned to check any baggage, but I was forced to after I remembered that there was a small swiss army knife on my keychain (a gift for being a groomsman in Brannon’s wedding). Rest assured, I won’t make that mistake again (or the bigger mistake of flying on US Airways).

I spent ~$45 on a change of clothes for tomorrow and possible Saturday. According to the EWR lost baggage office, in order to get reimbursed I must first contact a LIVE PERSON on the US Airways lost baggage phone system (which has thus far proven impossible as the phone system says it is too busy and hangs up on you), and get it authorized.

A google search on US Airways and lost baggage turned up this gem from a blog (about lost baggage on US Airways) almost exactly one year previous to this date. One of the same aiports was involved, too (PHL).

US Airways SUCKS.