Life for the traveling news photographer used to be a lot easier. All you needed was a couple of cameras and some clothes, our journey helped on it's way by helpful airport staff keen to hand search bags of film. A golden age of photography? Probably not, just golden memories.

I have travelled on and off for assignments for many years and it seems that I have been lucky to get by as long as I have without getting any equipment stolen from my luggage. My luck ran out last week and, looking back, I was probably one of the architects of my own misfortune. Stupidly I tried to obey the rules by keeping to one item of hand luggage, within the dimensions prescribed by the airline with whom I was traveling.

They weighed my Lowe Pro bag and insisted that I remove some of the items to get the weight down to their upper limit. I tried to argue, but the check in assistant wouldn't budge and a flash gun, some memory cards, camera batteries and a lens all had to be packed into my Lightware hold case. I was annoyed, but rationalised to myself that I had never lost anything from a case yet.....

My annoyance turned to anger when passenger after passenger checking in with a different assistant were allowed multiple pieces of hand luggage, mostly over the size limit and probably containing nothing more expensive or fragile than clothing. By this time my bags were long gone and I dismissed any thoughts of getting the case back and getting really stroppy. My colleague and I got on the plane and endured the fourteen hour flight with another passenger's hand luggage blocking the aisle. We changed flights and hoped that our cases would do the same, getting angrier and angrier about the double standards being applied to the size and weight of other passenger's carry ons.

Waiting in baggage reclaim I was delighted when my bags came off first (things like that never happen to me) but my joy quickly subsided when it became clear that my flight case had been opened in my absence somewhere on route.

We had been met by a security man employed by our host, who shrugged his shoulders as if this kind of thing always happens. I checked, and there was equipment missing. I wasn't really surprised, more like disappointed. We went to our hotel and did a full check of what was missing, totting up the costs in financial and hassle terms as we went. $2500 was the total that I came up with, but just as importantly was the potential hassle of being without a number of CF cards, a flash unit, some batteries and various accessories in a foreign country with a very tight shooting schedule. Depressing.

Having reported the loss to the airline, they weren't very helpful. They wanted me to wait until I got back to the UK to make the report formal and I was privately relieved that I didn't have to spend precious hours in country talking to bored bureaucrats. I did have to buy a few items to make my work possible and I want to thank Canon Professional Services for giving me the phone numbers of equipment dealers in my location and for getting me a small discount too. Back in London the airline are more helpful and want to "investigate my case", so an hour on the phone and three drafts of my letter later I can now expect a reply "within 28 days" at which point they may offer me up to $700 in compensation.

The joke is, of course, that had I joined a different queue to check in none of this would have happened. Airlines have had it tough since September the 11th, we all understand that but if they are going to have rules then they need to apply them fairly and do something about stopping this kind of theft. If they want us to check in valuable and important equipment, they have to be prepared to stop men in suits carrying on their cases and compensate us in full if gear goes missing because $700 buys very little when you are travelling with your dig'.