Given all the dark patterns used by airlines, I wonder why airlines haven't made a business out of it yet: pay $X extra, and be assured that your luggage actually arrives at your destination.
Although I'd argue that a lot more people could manage with carry-on if they just brought what they need for a trip rather than everything they think of.
- Ditch the standard rollaboard designs (especially hard-sided), which give the impression of being efficient but usually waste a significant amount of space. A bag (as opposed to suitcase-style luggage with stiff walls) has major advantages in maneuverability and simply taking up less space with its own material.
- Learn some of the rolled/bundled packing techniques to minimize wasted space and wrinkling.
Absolutely. They lead to a lot of the overhead space issues because they're relatively bulky and take up a lot of space even if someone has only packed for a single day trip. I get that some people have physical issues but, big a fan as I am on wheels for check-in luggage for the relatively rare occasions I need it, IMO it's mostly unnecessary for carry-on.
Every now and then I need to check luggage--mostly because I need gear for some longer active vacation. But it's definitely the exception and I run into problems of some sort on a fairly regular basis when I do. (Usually due to flight changes/cancellations because of weather, etc.
Looking at some fellow passengers I sometimes have the feeling that you could board the plane with a mid-sized SUV, if only you were able to lift it above your head to put it in the bin.
Some try to avoid bags in the hold (because of costs, time, risk) by cramming everything their cabin bag. And overpacking is pretty common.
That would be true if they didn't sometimes take your cabin bag away from you and put it in the hold.
(The last time I flew with United Airlines, they did that. Then they cancelled flights so I had to stay in Chicago overnight, and wouldn't give me back my cabin bag with clean clothes and things in it. Then they lost that bag and I didn't get it back for another three days. That was about a decade ago and I have never flown with United since then, nor will I ever again.)
Airlines made a business of that, too: with 'priority boarding' you get into the plane first, when the overhead compartments still have enough space. And some airlines (Ryanair) only allow so small bags in the cabin with a standard ticket that the overhead compartments don't get full nearly as often.
American/Delta/Jetblue/Southwest/Alaska/Hawaiian are no different. They're all the same, unless you have status. Alaska/Jetblue might be slightly better, but at the end of the day they have limited cabin space, and have no choice but to check in luggage, and I doubt their propensity to lose luggage is any different either.
Because then they'd have an obvious interest to lose your baggage and such an idea would quickly get squashed by the numerous lawsuits from upset travelers.
I my experience (back in the nineties when lost baggage was much more common) - no difference.
I wouldn't normally fly first class, mind. But I would fly business now and then, and I was upgraded to first a number of times.
I never noticed any difference in how often my case was lost. Big red "Priority" sticker never made any difference. Back then the case was lost so often that I can't give you any number, but it was so often that I got quite used to it. But it definitely made no difference on which class I was flying, or with a gold card or not, etc.
Only the airport and other conditions made a difference.
Sucks badly, when you're in the 0.6% group, though.
That said I was standing a number of times dumbfunded at the carousel after all bags were distributed.
Usually it was due to having been sent with an earlier flight, have fallen down (probably) on the way to the carousel, to then be delivered to my place of stay (arriving earlier than me) or something around those lines.
Really "lost" only happened once, which was on a BA flight connecting in Heathrow (of course). It was delivered the next day and sent from the airport by taxi.
Still, it sucks if you're part of a statistic and your luggage really gets lost. And it does happen.
Math checks out except the problem is not randomly distributed - certain airports have a very much higher rate of lost luggage (LHR, JFK‚ CDG, looking at you!) and some types of luggage will be more prone to disappear.
This assumes an even distribution of likelihood this will happen, which is far from the reality. You can proactively reduce your risk — don't check in late, watch to make sure the check-in agent actually puts the tag on until you see it go down the conveyer belt, don't book tight connections, book even more generous connections in complex airports when you have terminal changes across the airfield from each other or airports with a poor reputation for mislaying bags on connections, use transfer airports that have been explicitly designed for rapid transfers (e.g. MUC). A general rule of thumb is if you are going to have to uncomfortably rush to make a connection, your bag is even less likely to make it.
Plus, should your luggage get waylaid, there are other things you can do to hasten its recovery: have a fairly unique bag that is unlikely to be mistaken by another traveller as theirs, clearly label your contact details inside and out in case the paper tag gets ripped off.
This is basically a reformulation of the Birthday Paradox. Even with a large variety of makes and models of luggage (cf. 365+ days in a year), the chances of any two being the same increases superlinearly wrt passengers.
That's what I had in mind. I figure on average half the passengers on any given flight are returning home. People living in the same area tend to have the same retail choices. The number of variations among this group probably isn't in the hundreds.
My point is that the variety of luggage is so vast (i'd hazard tens of thousands of models) that the probability would be low even for a quite high number of passengers.
So if limited choice of suitcase colour available, get a can of spray paint and customise it so you can easily spot it - and others won't accidentally mistake it for their own ...
> Nearly half of all bags that go astray do so because of problems with flight transfers, Sita says. Delayed flights have knock-on effects - your bag just doesn't make it to the connecting flight in time.
> And a significant proportion of missing bags are down to passengers or handlers simply picking up the wrong one.
The former does seem like a hard problem without restricting people's ability to switch flights or delaying flights further to allow for luggage transfers.
I wonder if there is any room to improve the latter on the airline's part by adding visual variations to the tag without impeding the function. Like randomly assigning colors and giant emoji to be printed prominently on the tag, so that it is easier to distinguish at a glance whether it is really your bag.
(I mean, you should already be checking your name tag when you collect your bag, and people already add their own flair to their bags, but obviously not everyone is.)
A few airports have bag checks at exit, where they validate the tag against your chit. This is surprisingly rare though.
You can also tilt the odds in your favor by choosing an unusual bag color/design though: nobody's going to mistakenly pick up my lovely lime green number.
That's exactly what I (and many others, including my old parents) do. It really helps when you're waiting for your case, particularly for those big conveyor belts with tons of people.
I do wonder whether the rare fellow traveler with a similar bag would be less likely to verify the tag when pulling it off the carousel than those with the standard black bag.
I like the random color/giant emoji idea. The major downside I see is space on the tag and all the current printers are black and white so they all need to be replaced for this to be effective.
Or 1 in 172 bags, or about 1 bag on every other flight.
You're in line at the boarding gate, ready to get on the plane. You checked your bag before going through security, so you're happy you don't have to lug it around, lift the heavy monster up, and try to cram it into a small overhead-bin on the plane. However, you notice the gate next to you is boarding as well. Between your flight and the other, one checked bag will go missing. Do you feel lucky?
When you put it that way, it doesn’t square with lived experience. Are the 25M lost or just misrouted? Nearly everyone I know who flies has had a bag misrouted at some point.
Bag handling errors aren't going to be randomly distributed but heavily effected by airport and airline quality so it makes sense that the actual stats don't match any one person's anecdotal stats. If you live or fly out of an airport with a bad baggage system most people you know are probably using that same airport when they fly.
The success rate of a plane not crashing is much higher, yet it seems like keeping track of bags would be the easier problem to solve than ensuring a plane lands safely.
The potential losses of a plane crash are orders of magnitude greater than a few lost bags, so obviously much more effort and resources have been put into solving that problem. No system is perfect, and these two issues aren't even comparable.
Because there is little downside to failure. People say they will never fly with that airline again but most do, especially if its cheaper...
British Airways have fairly conclusively proved that ignoring complaints doesn't really cost them in the end... When the Heathrow baggage system collapsed BA just sold off the backlog as lost property, too hard to try and reunite bags.
I remember reading years ago that one of the airlines somehow added a bonus to baggage handler salaries based on luggage performance and immediately cleared up most of the problems.
As the article points out, the fraction of lost baggage has been cut by 75% in the last decade. I seem to remember even more dramatic numbers if you look further back in time.
But, of course, the comments here are (as of now) only cynical takes on how losing luggage is either complete incompetence, or one of various conspiracies of airlines or airports to earn money by... Well I don’t actually understand the ‘how’ part of the schemes. Apparently it’s by paying the customer the contractual (or, in the EU, required by law) hundreds of dollars per loss and then turning around and auctioning off mystery suitcases at $40 a pop?
What I find most annoying with lost bags (as mentioned usually due to short transfers) is the byzantine system you have to go through to get them back.
In most likelihood by the time you arrive your airline should already know that the bag didn't make it and is still in a transfer airport. They could just send you a message in their app and have you fill out a form so they know where to forward it.
Instead you have to waste tons of time waiting at the belt, then even more time waiting in line at the completely overworked lost+found counter(once you actually found it) just so you can fill out the details you could have just as well typed in in an app.
The only time my luggage had a problem like that, LH called me over the PA pretty quickly. Didn't have to wait at the belt, and the process was overall pretty painless. Luckily it happened on the return trip, so it was easy to deal with.
Once when I landed in Narita Tokyo an attendant was waiting for me outside the airplane, holding a sign with my name on. She told me that my suitcase had gone to the wrong airport, and after that she led me to a desk where I had to sign a form (they have to let customs go through the suitcase when it doesn't arrive with you), and to get my address so they could forward it when it arrived.
But then again this was Asia, which, as the BBC article mentions, also has a lower rate of lost baggage.
In any case, the situation is overall vastly better than when I was doing business travels all the time in the nineties. My suitcase would be missing at least 25% of the time. On some flights it was a certainty that it would be missing.
Now it's pretty rare. Even on very short transfers due to delays. I've on a few occasions literally walked out one gate an run directly to another to catch the flight, and surprise, the case made it every time. Brought directly from one plane to another no doubt.
>Once when I landed in Narita Tokyo an attendant was waiting for me outside the airplane, holding a sign with my name on. She told me that my suitcase had gone to the wrong airport
This happened to me when I went trekking in Borneo - someone approached me and told me my bag had got lost and that it'd be sent to my hotel when it arrived.
It arrived in the lobby the next day while I was out - there wasn't even a system for me to have to go through. I barely remember because it was barely an incident, only that it was a refreshing experience.
> In most likelihood by the time you arrive your airline should already know that the bag didn't make it...
Depends on the airline. Some (Southwest, iirc) don't scan the bags at all after check-in unless they find a stray bag somewhere in the system. They'll notice and scan your bag eventually it's misrouted or misses a connection, but it takes time.
Some others scan at every handling point and can be more proactive in reaching out if the computer notices a problem. But this increases the cost of bagging handling operations for the airline.
I have never understood is why there is no security around the pickup of bags on arrival. What prevents someone from simply picking up my bag from the carousel, knowing that it's not theirs, and walking off?
Or are airplane passengers invariably saints, so that this never happens?
There is, however, a non-zero risk for losing your handluggage or purse while waiting for your checked-in luggage. I know one fairly large (for European standards) airport where, for some reason, pickpockets (or what to call them) are able to get into the (closed) baggage area, and you have to keep an eye on your belongings at all times.
Because like nuclear power people (writ large) have an especially irrational fear of flying; they demand crippling levels of security theatre. Terrorists understand this, too.
Perhaps there very little to gain. Airport security can ask you at any time to see the corresponding stub for your baggage tag. So you want to steal a bag, what are you risking it for? Some clothes?
Baggage claim in most airports around the world is behind some kind of one way exit point so you need to have been a traveller on a flight to get access to the baggage carousel.
It is also not uncommon in places where petty theft is high for you to have to show your baggage receipt matches the baggage tag before you can take it from the baggage handling area.
I've been to almost every major airport, and several regional ones, in the continental United States and I can't remember a single baggage claim area for domestic flights that wasn't open to the public. Just this past weekend: Boston and San Francisco, both open to the public.
My favorite airport was Long Beach; it's been ~9 years, but last time I flew in the baggage claim conveyor belt was literally outside at the curb. (And this is why that place rocked. The expansion has likely since ruined all the little conveniences of LGB.)
Once upon a time some baggage areas had security which would spot-check claim tickets before you could leave the baggage area. That was mostly pre-9/11, though, when checking in your bags could be easier than leaving with them. Some major airports have [now] uselessly annoying barriers to baggage claim areas for that purpose.
PIT is open as well. Generally wherever I fly is someone is meeting me they meet me at the luggage claim.
Not sure how it could be any other way. After all you can pack weapons in checked bags, so once you are at checked baggage you are already beyond the security perimeter.
Use one way doors like pretty much any airport in Europe. Once you go to baggage you can’t go back to the main airport. But you are still not in a public area.
In some airports they do. I was in Atlanta last month, and a representative was checking bags against ID as everyone picked up their bag. I'm sure it is a function of the frequency of things getting stolen.
I've wondered this too. Maybe because almost all the people who have access to the carousel area are passengers with luggage. So any potential thief could also be the potential victim of theft - and in some game-theoretic way it is therefore most advantageous for everyone to be honest. Analogous to a Nash equilibrium?
Same reason why theft from tents on campsites is not (in my experience) so prevalent. Tents are vulnerable to burglary but most of the potential burglars are other campers and are therefore also vulnerable.
Most the time the fact that you are stranding there right next to the belt waiting. It’s a extreme high risk crime with little reward and no way for the criminal to make sure what they’ll get. They’d have a more profitable time trying to pick wallets from people waiting for their baggage.
Sometimes there is. I've had security check my claim tag before exiting the carousel area at LAX before. But that's certainly not the norm, even at LAX.
I suspect it's risk based. If they have reason to suspect there's ongoing theft, then they add additional layers of security.
Outside of that... theft would be extremely risky. There's a good chance the owner is already at the carousel somewhere watching their bag come out, and there's cameras everywhere.
Many people have pointed out that to get there you need to have flown in (probably losing money on the deal). Another, probably much smaller factor, is that there’s a non-zero chance that you grabbed the bag of someone bringing contraband in - at which point you’re going through airport security with a choice of saying the bag is yours and being arrested, or saying you stole it and being arrested. There are just much easier ways for a thief to make a living.
I cannot recall ever arriving at an airport where any local couldn't have walked in the arrival exit, grabbed a bag off the belt, and walked out without passing any type of security whatsoever. Aren't the belts usually right by the exits? I mean, perhaps security is watching for that type of activity via cameras, but I've never seen a checkpoint to get out after getting my bags.
But what happens to the bags after they have been picked up from the carousel, i.e. not lost?
Over the same time period there has been an increase in wheeled luggage. This has been a game changer. In the olden days people needed a taxi even if the hotel was a short walk away from the airport. This was because without the wheels it was quite a struggle to move one's luggage.
With the wheeled luggage people can get public transport that bit easier. So they are willing and able to walk a bit.
The wheeled luggage has not been welcomed by all. Demand for taxi airport runs diminished considerably with this innovation. But do people get parted from their luggage on the way on and off trains/tubes/buses more than in the olden days when a taxi driver was there to take responsibility for what was in his/her vehicle?
I've flown carry-on only most of my life and I've done up to two week trips (business and personal) with only carry on luggage. I'm also not the type of person that just hangs out in my hotel room after work. Of course if you need to wear anything nicer than a polo shirt to work this may not be possible.
1. Wear your bulkiest shoes to the airport
2. Find pants that can be used for work and play (I like Kuhl Slax)
3. Plan on doing laundry (or paying someone to do laundry) on trips over a week. Make sure you bring clothes to wear on laundry day!
4. Don't bring crap you won't use, but it is ok to bring items that you don't necessarily need if as long as they add value to your trip. As an example, I always travel with my Olympus EM5.2 and two lenses.
87 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 155 ms ] thread- Ditch the standard rollaboard designs (especially hard-sided), which give the impression of being efficient but usually waste a significant amount of space. A bag (as opposed to suitcase-style luggage with stiff walls) has major advantages in maneuverability and simply taking up less space with its own material.
- Learn some of the rolled/bundled packing techniques to minimize wasted space and wrinkling.
Absolutely. They lead to a lot of the overhead space issues because they're relatively bulky and take up a lot of space even if someone has only packed for a single day trip. I get that some people have physical issues but, big a fan as I am on wheels for check-in luggage for the relatively rare occasions I need it, IMO it's mostly unnecessary for carry-on.
Some try to avoid bags in the hold (because of costs, time, risk) by cramming everything their cabin bag. And overpacking is pretty common.
(The last time I flew with United Airlines, they did that. Then they cancelled flights so I had to stay in Chicago overnight, and wouldn't give me back my cabin bag with clean clothes and things in it. Then they lost that bag and I didn't get it back for another three days. That was about a decade ago and I have never flown with United since then, nor will I ever again.)
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-airlines-have-the-mo...
25M out of 4.3B is a success rate of 99.4%.
That said I was standing a number of times dumbfunded at the carousel after all bags were distributed.
Usually it was due to having been sent with an earlier flight, have fallen down (probably) on the way to the carousel, to then be delivered to my place of stay (arriving earlier than me) or something around those lines.
Really "lost" only happened once, which was on a BA flight connecting in Heathrow (of course). It was delivered the next day and sent from the airport by taxi.
Still, it sucks if you're part of a statistic and your luggage really gets lost. And it does happen.
So after 100 flights, your chances of never having had an issue with your bags is 0.994^100 = 0.547 aka coin toss.
https://www.primelinkinsurance.ca/blog/worst-reviewed-airpor...
Plus, should your luggage get waylaid, there are other things you can do to hasten its recovery: have a fairly unique bag that is unlikely to be mistaken by another traveller as theirs, clearly label your contact details inside and out in case the paper tag gets ripped off.
> And a significant proportion of missing bags are down to passengers or handlers simply picking up the wrong one.
The former does seem like a hard problem without restricting people's ability to switch flights or delaying flights further to allow for luggage transfers.
I wonder if there is any room to improve the latter on the airline's part by adding visual variations to the tag without impeding the function. Like randomly assigning colors and giant emoji to be printed prominently on the tag, so that it is easier to distinguish at a glance whether it is really your bag.
(I mean, you should already be checking your name tag when you collect your bag, and people already add their own flair to their bags, but obviously not everyone is.)
You can also tilt the odds in your favor by choosing an unusual bag color/design though: nobody's going to mistakenly pick up my lovely lime green number.
I've just put some large stickers at the bottom of my bag (normally invisible, but in plain sight when on the conveyor belt).
Honestly I didn't have any such problems in mind; did it mostly for my own convenience - to avoid the usual "erm, is it mine?" hesitation.
You're in line at the boarding gate, ready to get on the plane. You checked your bag before going through security, so you're happy you don't have to lug it around, lift the heavy monster up, and try to cram it into a small overhead-bin on the plane. However, you notice the gate next to you is boarding as well. Between your flight and the other, one checked bag will go missing. Do you feel lucky?
1-in-172 seems surprisingly low to me.
British Airways have fairly conclusively proved that ignoring complaints doesn't really cost them in the end... When the Heathrow baggage system collapsed BA just sold off the backlog as lost property, too hard to try and reunite bags.
Same reason their staff can be abrupt and downright rude with impunity. If you don't buy a seat, then someone else will.
But, of course, the comments here are (as of now) only cynical takes on how losing luggage is either complete incompetence, or one of various conspiracies of airlines or airports to earn money by... Well I don’t actually understand the ‘how’ part of the schemes. Apparently it’s by paying the customer the contractual (or, in the EU, required by law) hundreds of dollars per loss and then turning around and auctioning off mystery suitcases at $40 a pop?
In most likelihood by the time you arrive your airline should already know that the bag didn't make it and is still in a transfer airport. They could just send you a message in their app and have you fill out a form so they know where to forward it.
Instead you have to waste tons of time waiting at the belt, then even more time waiting in line at the completely overworked lost+found counter(once you actually found it) just so you can fill out the details you could have just as well typed in in an app.
In any case, the situation is overall vastly better than when I was doing business travels all the time in the nineties. My suitcase would be missing at least 25% of the time. On some flights it was a certainty that it would be missing. Now it's pretty rare. Even on very short transfers due to delays. I've on a few occasions literally walked out one gate an run directly to another to catch the flight, and surprise, the case made it every time. Brought directly from one plane to another no doubt.
I asked them and they said it was normal.
This happened to me when I went trekking in Borneo - someone approached me and told me my bag had got lost and that it'd be sent to my hotel when it arrived.
It arrived in the lobby the next day while I was out - there wasn't even a system for me to have to go through. I barely remember because it was barely an incident, only that it was a refreshing experience.
Depends on the airline. Some (Southwest, iirc) don't scan the bags at all after check-in unless they find a stray bag somewhere in the system. They'll notice and scan your bag eventually it's misrouted or misses a connection, but it takes time.
Some others scan at every handling point and can be more proactive in reaching out if the computer notices a problem. But this increases the cost of bagging handling operations for the airline.
Or are airplane passengers invariably saints, so that this never happens?
The laissez faire baggage claim is refreshingly delightful in contrast to the hell that every other aspect of air travel has become though.
Even the most opportunist thief probably doesn't want someone elses old clothes and half empty tins of hair product.
Even worse if it's a return flight - that means the clothes are dirty!
It is also not uncommon in places where petty theft is high for you to have to show your baggage receipt matches the baggage tag before you can take it from the baggage handling area.
The exception is baggage claims for international flights which are usually in a secure area due to the need to pass through customs.
My favorite airport was Long Beach; it's been ~9 years, but last time I flew in the baggage claim conveyor belt was literally outside at the curb. (And this is why that place rocked. The expansion has likely since ruined all the little conveniences of LGB.)
Once upon a time some baggage areas had security which would spot-check claim tickets before you could leave the baggage area. That was mostly pre-9/11, though, when checking in your bags could be easier than leaving with them. Some major airports have [now] uselessly annoying barriers to baggage claim areas for that purpose.
Not sure how it could be any other way. After all you can pack weapons in checked bags, so once you are at checked baggage you are already beyond the security perimeter.
Use one way doors like pretty much any airport in Europe. Once you go to baggage you can’t go back to the main airport. But you are still not in a public area.
Are they enforced with guards blocking people from coming in the exits?
Same reason why theft from tents on campsites is not (in my experience) so prevalent. Tents are vulnerable to burglary but most of the potential burglars are other campers and are therefore also vulnerable.
I suspect it's risk based. If they have reason to suspect there's ongoing theft, then they add additional layers of security.
Outside of that... theft would be extremely risky. There's a good chance the owner is already at the carousel somewhere watching their bag come out, and there's cameras everywhere.
For domestic flights in the US, yes, generally anybody can just waltz up and take a bag if they wished.
Over the same time period there has been an increase in wheeled luggage. This has been a game changer. In the olden days people needed a taxi even if the hotel was a short walk away from the airport. This was because without the wheels it was quite a struggle to move one's luggage.
With the wheeled luggage people can get public transport that bit easier. So they are willing and able to walk a bit.
The wheeled luggage has not been welcomed by all. Demand for taxi airport runs diminished considerably with this innovation. But do people get parted from their luggage on the way on and off trains/tubes/buses more than in the olden days when a taxi driver was there to take responsibility for what was in his/her vehicle?
1. Wear your bulkiest shoes to the airport
2. Find pants that can be used for work and play (I like Kuhl Slax)
3. Plan on doing laundry (or paying someone to do laundry) on trips over a week. Make sure you bring clothes to wear on laundry day!
4. Don't bring crap you won't use, but it is ok to bring items that you don't necessarily need if as long as they add value to your trip. As an example, I always travel with my Olympus EM5.2 and two lenses.