Wife has managed to lose her camera phone which included ALL of our holiday photos sometime between boarding the plane at Orlando, getting off and changing planes at Newark and arriving home.
It was in her handbag and looks like it tipped out on the plane. Nice one wife.
Anyway, filled in the airlines (Continental) lost property but I'm not hopeful. I can claim on
travel insurance but I'm more concerned about the lost photos.
Lesson learnt - never trust your wife with something important !!! (This is the third phone thats been lost, dropped in toilet since August)
Don't be so hard on the wife, if could've been you also. Nobody is 100% perfect.
Always make a back up of the pics, for instance by copying the memorycards or uploading them to the internet. Might costs a little money and/or taking along something like a netbook or other gadget but as you unfortunately found out; it's worth it if you loose the camera.
Your odds? Who knows. A cameraphone is a loved target for those "grab it, take it" folks. In such a case; 0%, sorry! If it was still on the aircraft after you deplaned? Depends on when you filed the claim. The earlier the better. If no other flights have been operated with it, the chances of finding it are best (read; no loads of folks amongst which just one has to be a "grab it, take it" person and see the phone). CO turns their planes around fast. If you haven't filed within like an hour or 2; it's loading other passengers again.
Clean up crew could find it but we all know clean up gets done half-half in ways to cut costs and keep turn around time down as much as possible. No way they'll go on an active search for lost stuff.
As soon as CO gets the report, they'll actually sent a worker down to said aircraft as soon as somebody can board it (difficult when in the air
) and go look for it. Seat gets checked (taken apart, some seats are known for things getting trapped in them so you can't see them anymore, happens at more airlines), incl. space around seat and common areas like walkway, restrooms etc. If crew find it, they should turn it it. I've actually seen quite good rates for returns on CO, but for a personal story it all will come down to yes or no, not odds.
I've actually seen CO staff in action after getting such a report filed more than once. You would be amazed to realise the calls being made, folks running upto planes (even if they're not at the gate) a.s.a.p. more calling around if item isn't found, they really do try. I've seen items returned I would've never expected to be returned. (read; $$$$$). And this is not just CO. I've seen enough airlines go through all of this to try and help a customer out for their lost stuff.
If they'll find your phone? Who knows. The longer it takes, the smaller your odds. The longer it took you to file a report; the smaller the odds. Phone doesn't increase the odds. Your best option would be for the phone to have fallen into one of the seat "pockets" that can "swallow up" stuff and you can never find it again, KNOWING it was there. In that case nobody sees it, unless they go looking for it. In that case odds are very good. Not many passengers take apart the seat for no reason
and somebody looking for the phone will.
This exact thing happened to my "seating neighbour" on my last transatlantic flight. Not a phone, but her seat also "swallowed" up an item. She knew the risks as a frequent flyer, missed the item in flight, waited till plane was deplaned, took seat apart and recovered item.
).
Hope you get it back
As I said, it depends on how honest the airline/airport staff are.
