[ba.general] Advice Wanted -- Claiming Damage from Southwest Airlines

dburr@headcrash.berkeley.edu (Donald Burr) (04/25/91)

Recently I took my Mac home with me, on a flight on Southwestern Airlines,
departing Oakland on Apr 19 at 07:00 PM, arriving Burbank at 8:10 PM, same
day.  When I got the machine home, everything worked perfectly, including
the external hard disk drive I brought with it.  I made sure to pack every-
thing carefully in my Mac bag, using items like mouse pads, etc. as padding.

Anyways, the Mac and all peripherals worked fine up until I departed Burbank
on Monday Apr 22 at 07:00 PM.  I arrived back in Oakland on the same day,
at 8:10 PM.

When I got back home, I unpacked my computer and plugged it in.  Same exact
configuration as when I left it.  Nothing changed.  Immediately, I started
noticing problems.  My RAM card is acting funny, and I have to ocasionally
open the computer, take it out, and plug it back in again, for it to work
right.  Also, a more serious problem has cropped up, and this has me worried.
My hard drive is acting funny.  It makes weird noises when I start up, and
when I ran Speed Disk on it to check disk integrity, there are 16 bad sectors.
Luckily, I didn't lose anything important.  This time.

Anyways, let me get down to the meat of my question.  Do I have any basis
for taking action against Southwest Airlines, along the lines of mishandling
of baggage, and whatnot?  I read somewhere in my ticket that checked baggage
(I checked my computer bag) was insured for $X dollars per pound, or some-
thing like that.

I need advice!  I'd like to get as much money out of this as possible, to
lessen the burden on me when I try to go repair this stuff, or buy replace-
ments (most likely in the case of the hard disk; bad sectors are hard to
cure.)

Please Email all replies to dburr@ocf.berkeley.edu.  If anyone is interested
in what replies I get, then email me your address and I'll send you a
summary.

ADVthanksANCE!
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Donald Burr; Univ of California, Berkeley | America Online: DonaldBurr
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