Lost luggage has been a common problem for air travellers this summer, but one American man decided to take matters into his own hands, travelling all the way from the US to Germany to retrieve his missing suitcases.
Cameron Hopkins and his girlfriend had been back home in the States for weeks following a trip to Europe when Mr Hopkins decided to make a trip to Dusseldorf Airport to try and find his luggage.
Thanks to some Apple AirTags, which Mr Hopkins had placed on the suitcases before making the trip, he knew exactly where the bags were, but was unable to get hold of them.
“It’s madness,” he told travel website The Points Guy, “it’s having an itch you can’t scratch.”
The luggage contained many sentimental items from the trip that they had made around parts of Greece, Italy and Poland, so Mr Hopkins decided to make a 96-hour round trip in an attempt to finally be reunited with his possessions.
On 3 July, he boarded a flight to Europe, beginning an adventure which would include cancelled trains, planes and hunting through rooms full of luggage.
The suitcases originally went missing during a stopover in Dusseldorf on the way from Venice to Krakow to attend a family gathering.
The Hopkins’ original Lufthansa flight had been cancelled so they paid £747 to re-book on Eurowings, a low-cost European carrier.
During the stop in Germany, Krakow-bound passengers were told they could stay on the plane. However, when they arrived in Poland, Mr Hopkins and some fellow travellers realised that something had happened to their bags.
“We get there, and half the people on the plane get their luggage — and half don’t,” he said.
On the hunt for his missing luggage, Mr Hopkins showed airport officials his Apple AirTags app, proving that the luggage was in Dusseldorf.
As calls to airline customer service were, according to Mr Hopkins, as helpful as “screaming into the abyss”, he and his family purchased essential items and clothing to last for the rest of the trip.
When the family returned home, further pleas for help were met with no response, leaving Mr Hopkins with no choice but to board a flight back to Dusseldorf via Frankfurt.
On arrival at Dusseldorf airport, staff directed him to rooms full of missing luggage, which he claims smelt terrible, but he eventually found his bags.
The return trip was long and included a flight to Poland, where Mr Hopkins dropped off some of the cases at his girlfriend’s parents, before he and the remaining luggage finally made it back to the US.
