LONG ISLAND (WABC) — It’s hard enough facing price hikes, long security lines and constant gate changes, but lost luggage is the worst.
Especially if you’ve packed some pricey items, which is exactly what happened to a Long Island family who contacted 7 On Your Side.
Patty Werner-Els headed to Europe to support her son’s Berlin marathon run — but after landing at JFK Airport, several suitcases and her granddaughter’s car seat were nowhere to be seen.
“We had to hire an Uber with a car seat to try to get them back from JFK to Manhattan,” Patty said.
Everyone else got their luggage eventually, but Patty’s never arrived.
Inside was a pricey piece of medical equipment to treat her sleep apnea.
“You stop breathing. It wakes you up immediately, and you keep getting woken up all night long,” Patty described her struggle with sleep apnea.
The CPAP machine cost her $899.
She says she went several rounds with the carrier, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, to get them to pay for the CPAP and other items in her missing suitcase.
“When you asked the airline and said, listen, I need this cpap to sleep, to breathe, I got to be reimbursed, what do they say?” Nina asked.
“Absolutely nothing. They, they didn’t have any… they didn’t care. ‘We’re looking,'” Patty said.
That search stretched into three months with no money back, and since her medical insurance had already paid for the one that got lost, Patty was forced to purchase a new CPAP out of pocket.
“So I said, well, let me look up on the internet who could help me out … You were the first to come up. And I said, well, let me just contact you.”
So Patty contacted the 7 On Your Side team.
Patty had been trying to resolve this on her own since before Christmas, with no results.
As soon as 7 On Your Side got in touch with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, a spokesperson said that her reimbursement was approved, adding their apologies for the lost luggage.
Patty was reimbursed $2087.71 for her lost luggage, more than enough to pay her back for the new CPAP machine.
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