CDG
The first time I flew into Charles de Gaulle I was on tour, and waited forever for my keyboard to appear at baggage claim. Everybody from my flight left with their luggage, but there was no sign of my giant flight case. I found the complaint department and asked them to track it down. "Is that it?" one man behind the counter said, pointing across the terminal.
Sure enough, standing upright and alone a hundred yards away in the middle of a walkway teeming with fellow air travelers was my case. How and why it ended up there, and why nobody else simply took it since it was left unguarded, remain mysteries to this day.
For my second flight into Charles de Gaulle I was with Trey and once again I found myself stuck at the baggage claim, this time waiting for his one-of-a-kind custom built 9 string guitar with non-western fret placement. It never showed up, and we hit that very same complaint department. Unlike my keyboard, they had no idea where it was, and they'd call him if/when it was located.
Our first gig of that tour was a rather big event in Lille a few days later. Phone calls to various entities were unhelpful and the guitar seemed to be basically lost - and given its unique nature it wasn't like we could go to a local shop and get another one. Eventually Alex, the organizer/promoter, called the airline on our behalf and said we would have to cancel the whole evening due to the missing instrument, and he would bill them the cost of all the refunded tickets. Within minutes we got a message back that the guitar was found at some random baggage hold. It was shipped to us just in time for the show.