This week we catch up with Gideon Kasfiner, CEO and Founder of First Luggage a luggage transportation company that is keeping the luxury travel market ‘moving’.
When did you launch First Luggage and how did you come up with the idea of a door-to-door luggage delivery service?
We launched in 2004 and the idea was born post 9/11 as security issues at airports grew and the number of airlines losing, damaging or misrouting luggage increased. We spotted the potential for a commercial enterprise and it all went from there.
Who uses your service?
First Luggage began as a premium service catering to VIPs and celebrities such as Joan Collins, but it soon gained wider popularity with a much greater range of travellers. Our service appeals to people with health issues such as bad backs, those going on sporting holidays and have lots of equipment like skis, the grey market and families who find themselves juggling more bags than they have children.
Consequently, we have an extremely wide demographic using our service. Other brands have been introduced in the past couple of months including Luggage Delivery Company, which just operates in Europe and is slightly slower and cheaper, catering more to the mass marketplace. Then Student Luggage Delivery Company caters to students worldwide travelling to and from their universities and storage facilities in the UK.
What are the main benefits?
We collect your bags from your home and transport them to your destination, wherever that might be – a hotel, villa, yacht or other address, so cutting out the need for you to take big bags to the airport altogether. It avoids the stress of the weigh-in and check-in process, excess baggage charges, as well as waiting for your (possibly damaged) bags at the other end.
How much does it cost?
It depends on which service you use, how many (and the size) of your bags and to which destination. But to give an example, Luggage Deliver Company would deliver a 15kg bag from the UK to the Netherlands for £25 one way.
Where are the most popular destinations you deliver to?
USA is one of our most popular destinations followed by Dubai. Then our top European holiday spots include Switzerland, Spain, Italy and France.
What is the strangest thing you have ever had to deliver?
A bag to Mount Everest.
Have you ever lost a bag?
We’ve lost one bag in ten years. Every item that we send is electronically tracked along the way and we troubleshoot for any potential problems in the tracking process. We also have a team of customer services people dedicated to this job.
When you travel yourself where do you like to go?
I travel a great deal to Israel and to the east coast of the USA. For holidays I also love the South of France.
Do you have any top packing tips you can share?
Rolling items allows for lots more space, and consider taking layers rather than lots of different bulky items. Putting items in shoes save space and using vacuum-packed ‘packing bags’ can also help to reduce volume. When you unpack the items you can hang them straight up as it doesn’t crease them at all.
Is there anything new in the pipeline for First Luggage?
We have just launched a brand new ‘London to Paris and Paris to London’ same-day delivery service, allowing customers to send their luggage ahead, direct to their hotel (or other address), leaving them to travel from city to city baggage free. It’s perfect for holidaymakers heading to Disneyland Paris, for a day’s sightseeing or shopping, and enables them to travel straight to their final destination without lugging heavy bags around. We can also arrange for bags (and any additional shopping that might have been acquired along the way) to be transported back home that same day too.
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