What to do if you forgot something on the plane

Algorithm of actions based on personal experience.

Probably, many of you have forgotten something on the plane: in a chair pocket, on the luggage rack, or when a thing accidentally falls under the seat. After a long or night flight, when fatigue prevails and concentration is at zero. And then you go home in a taxi and suddenly realize that your favorite headphones are not with you, but are left somewhere on the plane.

In my flights, I forgot books, and twice, a huge box of Maxim French cakes that my beloved was carrying, and even a cover from these very headphones that I forgot the day before, decently nodding on the flight from Rostov to Moscow.

I found the “forgetting” of the cover only a few days later, I just scored it on books and cakes, but I felt sorry for the headphones, they have been traveling with me for two years now, having visited almost forty countries.

Today I returned them, and here's how to do it right.

As soon as you realize that you forgot something in the cabin, you should not immediately yell at your wife that she is a crow, drill out your husband’s brain about a forgotten purchase, or throw yourself under the wheels of an aeroexpress train in despair. Not everything is lost: at the airports there are special services that can save you and your loss.

The first thing to do is get a smartphone and google the phone for forgotten things at the airport where you arrived. Then we call, introduce ourselves, call the flight number, arrival time and your seat number (if you remember). Then we describe in detail the forgotten thing.

In the event that you find the loss almost immediately after leaving the side, this service will contact the service responsible for cleaning the board after the flight, you do not need to leave the airport. Wait for a while, and you will be returned the item through the baggage search desk.

If the loss was discovered already at home or after a certain time, then know that your loss should be returned to the service of forgotten things, where it is entered into the registry, marked and stored.

During your call, an employee checks the records for your flight in the database and checks against the description that you give by phone. Coincided? Go to the airport to pick up the loss. You need to have a passport with which you bought a ticket and preferably a boarding pass with your seat number (but not required).

In the photo, the service for tracing luggage and forgotten things at Vnukovo Airport, Moscow.

It is interesting that in Vnukovo, in our computer time, the register of things forgotten by passengers is still maintained in the old manner, in a notebook. While they were looking for my headphones, the girls received a call from a passenger who had forgotten something on the plane, and they searched for his thing as described in this notebook.

Keep in mind that forgotten things are stored in the warehouse for 30 days, and then disposed of.

The first two days (including the day of your flight) storage is free, for all subsequent storage fees are charged.

In the case of Vnukovo Airport, daily storage costs 70 rubles.

So, without getting upset and not too lazy to call on the phone, I returned my favorite headphones-travelers, with whom I expect to travel to many more countries and visit more than one continent.