[[!meta title="When shit happens"]] This short history has many things to do with Europe decadence: basically our luggage got lost in Frankfurt airport in the last December and our conection fligh was cancelled. The whole airport was crowded, a lot of flights were cancelled and there were just a minimum staff to help and recommend people to get a train to their final destination. "Ok", we said, "we get the train but then give us our luggage". The staff just replied: "No luggage, the system is overloaded. Fill this form and we'll send your luggage home". Hell! We were at the airport, our luggage was lying there and we couldn't get it! Also, sending the luggage back home was no deal. The companies didn't realized that actually there were people travelling to and not just returning from their trips. In short, we spent 15 days in an extreme european winter without luggage. That's why we adopted the [Travel Lite Strategy](/travel/lite). It looks like in normal conditions everything works in Europe, while during emergency situations people can't handle anything and start to mess things around. In Brazil things looks quite the opposite: there aren't "normal" conditions in the sense of everything working seamleslly. Everything always looks like in a special conditions, but at least people can manage the situation. So it looks like a symptom of the crisis and substantial cuts the airway companies had in the past two years. They fired a big part of their staff, a measure that save money without a "substantial" loss of quality in their service (read: without reaching the consumer's claiming threshould) during normal conditions. But a measure that definatelly has disastrous consequences during emergencies. So, when travelling, always remember: companies are there for the sole purpose of profit, they give a shit for you or for their staff. If they could they would fire everybody, except you that is their source of wealth.