Old story, new twist

Given the time span from a 7.05 a.m. on-time take-off, allowing for the Catania stop-over, and on-time landing at Gatwick Airport, Air Malta KM1122 on Thursday, July 12 would have gone down as an uneventful occurrence in any passenger's life.

Except for two unexpected and unrelated events! One, the Air Malta flight, upon landing at Gatwick, had to delay its approach to its assigned gate by a good 30 minutes as a result of a Croatia Airlines flight being late in pulling away from the gate in question. Two, this delay necessitated a dash to catch a connecting international flight where ground personnel had to personally escort me and seven other passengers through security and transit desk processing. Baggage also had to be located and transferred to our flight.

The second event was that upon retrieving my luggage at my destination, I noticed that the locking mechanism had been tampered with. Unpacking my suitcase contents confirmed my worst suspicions. My Canon A550 PowerShot Digicam had gone missing! Removed without my (the owner's) permission, pilfered, stolen.

Retracing the time(s) my suitcase was accessible to anyone coveting its contents, the following may be of help in determining where the dastardly deed took place. Two hours from check-in to departure at MIA Luqa, 35 minutes on the tarmac at Catania, without the suitcase ever having left the hold of the Air Malta plane, approximately 60 minutes to transfer to my international connection at Gatwick. I leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. There is one final twist to this saga. The thief, perhaps out a perverted sense of propriety, left behind a stylish pair of ladies' Ray-Ban sunglasses complete with protective black exterior/red velvet interior original case. Or, presumably, he figured my Canon was more valuable than the Ray-Bans.

A pair of ladies' Ray-Bans anyone?