Decongest luggage reclamation area at Kotoka - Passenger entreats Airports company

“Decongest the luggage reclamation area of the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) of persons who have no business being there,” that is the plea to the management of the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) by a retiree, Mr George Kwabena Asumadu, who has lost his luggage with personal effects worth about £2000, at the airport.

“There are too many ‘goro’ boys in the luggage reclamation area. At any international airport worth its salt, no one who has no business in the luggage reclamation area is seen there. Only those on wheel chairs are assisted by recognised airport officials in reclaiming their bags,” he added.

The plea comes after four months of being tossed around from Kumasi to Accra, just for Mr Asumadu to find his luggage.

He said he was now convinced that his suitcase might have either been stolen by someone at the luggage reclamation area, those in charge of discharging luggage from the plane, or those at the Lost and Found Office.

M Asumadu said he holds management of the airport responsible for the loss.

Ordeal

Recounting his ordeal to the Daily Graphic, in Accra, Mr Asumadu, 78, who resides in the UK and visit Kumasi often, said he arrived in Ghana with his wife, Agnes Asumadu, and six suitcases, via a British Airways (BA) flight, on May 27, 2024.

He said after going through immigration processes at KIA, they proceeded to the luggage reclamation area where they were able to reclaim five of their six luggages.

After waiting for some time, an official of KIA told them to either go home and return the next day, or proceed to the Lost and Found Office to lodge a complaint.

Mr Asumadu said more than a dozen passengers proceeded to that office, where they were given forms to fill. He went back the following day, where an Aviance supervisor advised him to put in claims for his lost luggage to the BA in London.

Mr Asumadu said when his daughter in the UK made the claim to BA offices there, she was told that the bag had arrived in Ghana.

The BA office in the UK also gave a number for them to trace the luggage, which was, AKE 19718 BB, directing his daughter that the number be given to the KIA officials in-charge of luggage reclamation to input into their system to trace the missing suitcase.

He said officials at the Lost and Found Office said they could not do it because their systems were down, and so they did not check.

Mr Asumadu, therefore, returned to Kumasi, only to be called back to Accra some days later and told that his luggage had been found.

When he got to the office, he was shown a small hand luggage with his name and the tag of his lost bag on it.

But Mr Asumadu informed them that it was not his, and wondered how his name and the tag of his lost bag were affixed to it. He said he had since not received any feedback again.

Attitude

He said the attitude of officials at the Lost and Found Office who could not trace the luggage with the reference number provided by the BA office in the UK, on the pretext that their systems were down, together with the hand luggage with his name and the tag of his lost luggage affixed, convinced him that the bag did actually arrive in Ghana but might have been stolen at the KIA.

He said in the past, passengers after reclaiming their luggage and before leaving the hallways of the airport were stopped by airport security officials and their luggage tags in their hands were checked against luggage tags on the suitcases they were with.

“Today, nobody checks anything and anybody can steal any suitcase and take it out easily,” Mr Asumadu claimed.

Some people interviewed by the Daily Graphic around the airport, also complained about how some flights arrive in the country without passengers’ luggage, with the attendant frustration of having to wait for weeks.

When contacted, the Customer Service Department at KIA refuted Mr Asumadu’s claim, and rather placed the blame on BA.

Writer’s email: caroline.boateng@graphic.com.gh