I walked through the throng packed around my flight’s conveyor belt and looked for a large, blue bag. I didn’t have to wait long. Within seconds, it rolled into view. My bag was speckled with droplets of water. Rain, presumably. I also spotted a long cut across its front shell. Sigh. Again.

I heaved the bag from the belt and inspected the tear more closely. The thin plastic shell covering was sliced about 25 centimeters, a layer of foam padding visible below. At least this time, the bag was still functional. A mere cosmetic error. The fate of its twin, another cheap suitcase bought in the same place and at the same time, had been more dramatic. While collecting it at SeaTac on my first visit to the American continent, I had quickly noticed it could no long stand upright, or roll properly. The plastic fixture around one wheel was broken, pushing the wheel into the bag. It required more effort to keep it on its other three wheels, but then there was a car waiting for us, and I didn’t need to move the bag until I flew back. Tant pis.

The next few weeks after that trip the idea of filing a claim for compensation floated around. But it floated away, too. When I last thought back on it, the trip had been so long ago that I didn’t think a complaint was likely to bear fruits anymore. It became one cheap bag that I could now permanently use as a basement storage box, which had been its role throughout most of the year, anyway. And there was still the blue bag that I could use in the future.

Today I sighed, took blue bag, and limped towards the exit of the luggage pick-up area. I continued towards the train station, checked the schedule on my phone, and booked a ticket. Once seated, I started looking where to file a claim for my bruised bag. First, I located the “Damaged Bag” section in the Scandinavian Airlines’ (SAS) app via chatbot. Was I still at the airport, or not? I was, sort of. Below the airport. If I was, I could file a “PIR” report at the luggage pick-up desk. If not, I should “file report within 7 days” by calling their customer service, or filing an online report.

Being half inside and half outside the airport, I wanted to explain my situation to a human, and offer up my incontrovertible proof, somehow, somewhere. Of course, the phone service did not present a human, but a robot. After jumping through five phone menus, the conclusion of the decision tree was to “check the instructions for damaged bags at your arrival airport”.

Some internet searching and hopping through 404s eventually brought me to Brussels Airport’s damaged bag information page. It all depended on the airline, that page said. Different airlines used different luggage handlers. Contact your airline to figure out how to reach their luggage handler.

Great, we had a loop. I opened the SAS chatbot again, this time opening with: “I need to call you” - “I’m sorry, we understand you want to talk to a human. Our customer service is not available right now.” Robots were properly running this show.

Let’s try backtracking to the online report page, then. A promising button “Damaged Bag” lead to an intimidating notice offering the first frank advice: “you have to report the issue at the airport luggage area. SAS will do absolutely nothing for you after you leave, bla bla Montreal convention bla bla. Here’s a list of SAS phone numbers per airport”. Maybe I could still arrange to meet someone from SAS? So I called once, twice, thrice. Nothing. The line invariably cut after a minute.

My train was now imminent. After half an hour of trying to get this complaint sorted on my phone, I weighed my options. Leave, and try to just forget this? In the morning, I had hit my left small toe on our door threshold, and during the day it had swollen into a painful bruise. I indeed was slightly limping. Exiting Brussel’s Airport had involved a fair amount of walking, and it had been a painful experience. I didn’t feel like repeating that process.

On the other hand, this felt unjust. Another bag damaged. I felt like tweeting, or actually, tooting, something like “PSA: Don’t leave the luggage area if you find your checked bag is damaged when picking it up. Thank me later!”. Maybe I could also mention SAS’s customer support experience, and get a sip of sweet revenge. But I relented. A privileged guy with a petty complaint. Barely anyone followed me, and what would it matter to them, anyway? And by the way, did I überhaupt want to talk about flying? I have some of that flygskam.

Is it normal that your cheap bag breaks when you’re traveling by air? I’ve often seen luggage handlers carelessly toss bags onto carriers. Conversely, I remember news reports and strikes denouncing high pressure work environments, worker rights foregone, and low wages. Maybe my lesson should be to buy an expensive and strong bag next, and to not complain about my blue piece of plastic.

No. Looking at the tear again, I didn’t want to let this small injustice pass. One bag was fine, but breaking the second twin tipped the scale for action. Luckily, Belgian train tickets are valid for a full day, and not for a specific departure time. Perhaps this is to accommodate the long-standing tradition of delays and cancellations the country has suffered. I could catch a later train, and walk back up to the arrival hall, where I could try to find someone, and see if I could somehow still file this PIR report from outside the luggage area. I had to try.

My train arrived as I looked down from the escalator taking me back to the airport. Soon enough, I scoured the arrival hall for some sign of a human providing airport support. I didn’t find one, but I saw a “Lost and Found” sign. Promising. Arriving at a small desk, I explained my bag was damaged. “Boarding pass and ID card”, she gruffly threw back. Then she used her badge and sent me through an electronic gate. “Explain it in the luggage pick-up area”. Great! Victory number one. I entered a sterile white service corridor, and walked in the forbidden direction.

The actual Lost and Found desk, in a forgotten corner of the luggage area, had seven or so people queuing at an empty glass booth. There were two more empty booths. In front of each booth stood a touch-screen terminal. An airport employee was assisting the people in front of the queue, but soon vanished behind a door. I had already accepted I would lose time to get my shot at justice, so I waited patiently, and observed. A round-faced mom joined the queue, pushing a buggy with an adorable, round-faced baby. She slid into the spot that I had loosely occupied - a sacrifice I was willing to make. After some time, another employee passed by, telling us to use the other machines in front of the other booths too. “They are broken”, some people in front said. We tried anyway.

Some refreshing signs of humanity surfaced in this depressing bureaucratic environment. We helped the mom lift her heavy bag so the terminal’s camera could see that a wheel was missing on the bottom. When trying to take the picture, the terminal itself proved broken, too. It ignored input as soon as it entered the photo stage. Once the employee returned, she helped shushing the baby by rocking the buggy gently, and promised to take care of her problem manually.

The employee gone again, the man in front of me whispered in exasperation to his partner. “They lost my bag. And now I’m losing my time too”. The partner realized they had missed their train. “Fuck”.

It had been a good 45 minute wait before I could start filling in the form, requesting all possible details about the bag, my flights, my identity, and my addresses. Like the person in front, I filled that my bag was worth 50 euros. The original price might have been 20, 30, or 40. I don’t remember. But considering the time drain and phone bill this miserable situation had presented, inflating by this value slightly seemed only fair. It took half an hour more to finish. At the end, the machine showed a case reference number. It promised it had emailed me a receipt, but that, too, was apparently broken. So I took a picture and left.

I may get a compensation, or I may not. I don’t care much either way. At least I didn’t let this go by unreported, again. The people with the power to shape this experience are likely not trying to figure out an international customer support journey full of dead ends while having a bruised toe, or standing in queues with broken machines and crying babies. My guess is that they only see the numbers.