However distress was the right word. It started with an accusation of uploading porn to the internet. I was uploading holiday photographs to Flickr which included some of 17 year old daughter and friend scantily glad on a boat in Bali. This alerted some scanning system on the hotels broadband service. Things were difficult for a period to say the least. Much as I would like internet pornographers caught, this does seem a little Big Brotherish and one wonders what else is being monitored.

Slightly stressed I arrived at the airport, My baggage had not been released (airlines never do for some reason when there is a delay), so I checked that my bags had been moved over. I specifically expressed concern as my flight number had been changed and I guessed that the bag would be same flight next day. I was assured that this was not the case, but as expected no bag, it came in later on the AA78. I don't know why airlines don't just own up to this. On every occasion when my bag has been lost (and there have been several) I am assured it is on the next flight, but of course it ends up same flight next day.

The only exception was Singapore Airlines. My bag had not made a Qantas connecting flight to Singapore so when I arrived in London I was met as I left the plane and given £100 in cash to buy clothes and received an apology on the spot. In contrast on this occasions, as in all other cases extracting any compensation is painful. This week I had to move on to several important meetings over two days in Brussels & Copenhagen before I could return home for new clothes and there was not time to wait for the AA78. I could not turn up in a 48 hours unwashed T Shirt so the error has cost me around £300.

Now don't get me wrong, in general I think American Airlines are one of the best and I go out of my way to fly with them. But the Singapore Airlines story speaks more to quality. Make few mistakes, and when you do take full responsibility. its not a bad lesson for anyone in the service industry.