Mugged at City Airport - won't be flying Swiss Air again....

We've just been mugged and robbed by SWISS AIR at London City Airport.

Along with a dozen other passengers, we were told that because we booked our tickets through Expedia, we had no luggage rights. That meant we were held hostage until we paid an extra £68 per bag extra, and another £68 for our boot bags. When there are four of us, that's an expensive morning.. and we'll have to pay it again when we return next week.

According to the terribly smug Swiss Air clerk, this is absolutely legal. Even though Expedia is an agent appointed by Swiss Air to sell tickets, its tickets apparently aren't the same - he told us as he gleefully collected the dosh.

The second class tickets from Expedia differ in two critical ways - you have no luggage rights and, as all the passengers this morning had found, you can't use the on-line system to check in or to pay for luggage. I asked the clerk to show me the relevant clause in their terms and conditions. He told me his printer wasn't working. When I dared to complain further, he accused me of harassment. I was expecting him to ban me from the flight, but fortunately two airport policemen were watching the whole thing. One told me it happens all the time.

We will be checking the facts with Expedia, but of course we couldn't get through to them this morning.

To get to the slopes, we had to pay way over the odds for our bags... In fact our bags have cost us considerably more than our tickets.

My daughter tells me I should not be so angry about it. She says the Swiss Air Staff were just doing their job - which is basically to shake down passengers.

I look at it otherwise.

We've paid good money for the flights, and aside from the business of getting us to Geneva, we have a contract with the airline (no matter it was bought through their agent, Expedia) which requires them to treat us with fairness and courtesy... which this morning.. they did not.

There are two ways of looking at this.

Firstly, we should have been savvy enough to check and then check again about the luggage. We thought we had paid for luggage. Apparently we hadn't.

Secondly, I'm mounting a crusade against Swiss Air. We certainly won't be flying them again, and I urge others to do the same. I'm also going to check Expedia.. and if, as I suspect, they didn't properly inform us as to our luggage rights.. they will also be on my "corporate greed" shit list.

Bill Blain