A co-worker of mine flew to one of our facilities to take pictures of it to put it on our website. In order to take the pictures he needed, he had to bring a tripod for the camera. When he got to the airport, American Airlines told him he had to check his tripod because it was too big to bring on the plane. On the way there, it was no problem. On the way back, however, his tripod got lost. So of course, he went to American and told them about his lost tripod and they said they would look for it. A few weeks later, we got this letter from American Airlines (click on the image on the right to see it). 

This is nothing new for American or any other airline. Airlines in general have the worst customer service you could think of. I'm not really /facepalming the fact that my co-worker's tripod got lost. The real /facepalm here is the fact that these airline companies still think they are trying to give people good customer service when it is very clear that they aren't even putting forth the effort. To begin the letter, they say "An extensive search has been conducted to locate your missing property." Are you kidding me? I've seen those airline workers. They couldn't care less if they found your missing property. How "extensive" was this "search"? Moving on, the next great sentence in the letter says "Please let me assure you that there is nothing more important to us than the safe transport of our passengers and the items they entrust to our care." Now we all know, that's a bunch of crap. The ONLY thing they care about is money. There's no way they could care less about you or your baggage.  As the letter goes on, they let you know what thier rules are for refunding lost baggage. It turns out that camera equipment is non-refundable, so we're just out of luck."...there is no adjustment that can be made for your loss and your claim has been denied." 

So, just because you made the rule that said your liabilities are limited, you tell us in one sentence that there is nothing more important to you than your customers and their baggage and then you say there is nothing you can do for us even though you lost our tripod. 

The whole airline industry is a big /facepalm in my opinion. Check out a survey graph I found.