[Leica] What would you do if this happened to you?

[pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein)]

Ted:  So sorry this happened to you.  Here's my advice.

1.  Calm down and rehearse what you are going to say.  Remove as many 
Anglo-Saxon terms from your vocabulary as possible.   ;-)   I would be 
pissed as hell if this happened to me, too.  But remember that your goal is 
to get them to compensate you, and to find out how to avoid the problem in 
the future.  This may preclude the questioning of the baggage handlers' 
parentage or bodily functions.  :-)  :-)  :-)   Your friends on the LUG are 
happy to hear about these things so you can get them off your chest.

2.  Check with your airline on the proper procedure of who to contact.

3.  When you do talk to "them," whoever "they" are, explain that you are a 
professional journalist and photographer who has spent a lifetime traveling 
the world photographing important people and events, and nothing like this 
has ever happened to you before.  Tell them about the case and the 
tape.  Don't mention the shutter locks.  Just say that two of three cameras 
were damaged in such a way that it is clear that considerable and 
inappropriate force was used on the controls.  There is no possible way 
that this could have happened because of simple jarring of the case, etc.

4.  While you understand that security is important, over five thousand 
dollars worth of professional photo equipment has been severely damaged, 
and a professional engagement jeopardized because of what appears to 
incompetent or irresponsible conduct on the part of the baggage inspectors, 
and you believe they need to compensate you fully for this.

5.  Ask what you can do or say on future travels so that this will never 
happen again.

See what they say.  Be brief and polite, but firm.  Also, get complete 
documentation from Leica Service as to the extent of the internal damage 
and their assessment of what caused it.  If you didn't do it yourself, 
maybe they can take a few impressive digital pictures of damaged parts.

I heard a story on NPR just a few weeks ago about this kind of thing.  The 
TSA and the airlines have a fund from which to compensate people for loss 
and damage due to the new security procedures, so some form of recourse 
should be available.  The bad news was that the TSA and the airlines were 
fighting over what percent of the fund should come from their respective 
pockets, so compensation has been delayed in many cases.

Footnote:  A year ago, I was flying back home from Palm Springs 
(California) Regional Airport, at the beginning of one of those "Orange 
Alert" periods.  A female baggage asked me if I would mind if she opened 
and inspected my check-in luggage before they sent it to the plane.  I said 
that things being how they were, sure, it was OK.

Now, I was coming back from a week's vacation, so all my dirty clothes were 
stuffed into the bag every which ways.  So when she started going through 
the bag, I quipped: "You know, it's been a long time since a woman has 
looked at my dirty underwear with such interest."  When she and her TSA 
colleagues stopped laughing, she thanked me, saying that they had been 
taking a lot of flak from people, and that I was one of the nicest ones to 
come through in a while.

Hope this helps,
--Peter