Airlines 'lose one million bags'

[green granite]

Is this really acceptable?

Airlines around the world 'mishandled' 42 million bags in 2007 and irretrievably lost more than a million of them, a pressure group has said.

The Air Transport Users Council (AUC) report said the problem was the worst it had been in recent years.
Complaints showed travellers without receipts for lost items were not being fully reimbursed, the AUC said.

In other cases, airlines were taking into account the depreciating value of items.

AUC chairman Tina Tietjen said: "If something goes wrong, airlines should be prepared to compensate their passengers fairly.

full story BBC NEWS | UK | Airlines 'lose one million bags' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7946953.stm)

[The Real Slim Shady]

So that's where TKMaxx gets its stock from.

I recall walking through baggage reclaim in PMI ( Palma de Mallorca) and watching a forlorn and lonely suitcase go around the carousel tagged for LPA
(Las Palmas).

Simple mistake, anyone absolute numpty would confuse the 2!

[raffele]

Not acceptable no.

A sizable portion of that statistic will probably be the fallout from the T5 opening, although those bags weren't lost, just stuck in a BHS that wasn't set properly...

[angels]

Well, touch wood, in 35 or so years of quite active air travel I've never had a bag lost.

I've landed at the wrong airports, landed in wrong countries, turned up to find no planes, had crap food, had no food, had IFE that doesn't work and everything else.

But I've never had my bags lost. :ok:

[Captain_djaffar]

Actually it's not the airline that pays out. It's the insurance.
I used to work for a major european travel insurance company, and there's a lot more than only depreciations that are being deducted in such cases.

These issues depend only on the policy set-out by the insurance which the traveller bought. {usually a standard one}

The solution would be that the responsibility for lost baggages resulting from airlines mishandling, should be on the airline only and not the insurance.

[racedo]

Not acceptable but not really a surprise.

In 2002 taking an Easyjet flight from CDG to LTN there was problems with the bags and anybody with bags had to get off and identify their bag before it was loaded.

One ex colleague who was also travelling couldn't find her bag and clearly a few other flights had same problem as eventually her bag was found with other bags ready to be loaded to Lagos, Nigeria. Plane left about 2 hours late.

A US friend stood in line behind a woman who was demanding an upgrade and really harassing and abusing the checkin clerk as she said she was a frequent flier who flew once a year. Eventually when got nowhere screamed well I hope this ticket is for Miami, clerk smiled and said yes and woman walked off and he heard clerk saying very quietly your f*****g bags are going to Bogota.

[deltayankee]

Doesn't sound so good, and I agree that an improvement would be welcome, but what is the source of this data?

I am amazed that all the airlines in the world, all struggling independently, manage to lose a number of bags that when summed up is exactly a round number.

Can we have this as a percentage? "A million people die in hospitals each year", or "a million people die in car crashes" or "a million people die of hamburger related heart disease" are also possible headlines, but do they make sense out of context?

[Captain_djaffar]

I am amazed that all the airlines in the world, all struggling independently, manage to lose a number of bags that when summed up is exactly a round number.



are you kidding ?

[radeng]

It would be interesting to know how many they DON'T lose.

Then we have to define 'lose'. Delayed by how long? 24 hours? 48hours? a week before they go from 'delayed' to 'lost'?

[racedo]

I think they were defining lost as never to meet up with its owner again.

A friend flew back from Europe to US on a NW 747 in 2004 and they had a digital camera as carry on. She left it o/head but when coming to collect luggage it had gone and nobody had opened it as flight was less than half full.

Claimed on Insurance and 8 months later got a call from NW in Knoxsville. Plane was undergoing complete maintenance overhaul and they found a digital camera of make and detail she had lost that slipped down between inner and outer skins.

They sent it to her and notified ins company as she had claimed on it and they paid out, she was glad of camera because of the photos and happily sent the insurance company a cheque for what it was worth. The ins company happy to be repaid as the losing camera is a well known scam.

Sometimes the airlines do go out of their way in checking and tracing back passengers and while camera wasn't of huge value the photos were pretty important .

[G-BPED]

Not acceptable no.

A sizable portion of that statistic will probably be the fallout from the T5 opening, although those bags weren't lost, just stuck in a BHS that wasn't set properly...

I agree that the numbers are not acceptable but, T5 opened in March 2008.

The statistics were from 2007.

[raffele]

Whoops! My mistake - must have glossed over that part

[racedo]

BA Christmas 2007 was a disaster area wasn't it at Heathrow.

[radeng]

American Airlines lost a bag of mine for 13 weeks. They had paid up by that time (about $1200 in all!)on the basis that it wasn't likely to turn up again. When it did, the clothes inside were all ruined with mould, despite AA having opened the case and washed them all - basically becaue of the smell!

On the other hand, a transfer from an AF internal flight at CDG to BA with 4 hours still saw the bag delivered next day by BA. Unlikely to be their fault: I wonder how much it costs them for dealing with bags that are delayed by other airlines?

When BA DO lose a bag, it can be a trying time, as their 'tracing service' appears to exist for the employment of congenital village idiots.

After getting no sensible answer, the woman was told 'I wish to speak your supervisor or manager'

reply: ' I haven't got a supervisor or manager'

BA did divvy up £250 after a complaint about the stupidity and incompetence...

[boredcounter]

For God's sake, never give airlines money, they lose that faster than bags!

[racedo]

Good one Boredcounter

Know some people who wanted to give them ex-wives so they could lose them.

[Llademos]

As is so often the case (pun intended), these statistics are being used incorrectly by a biased party.

In 2007 4.8 billion passengers flew (Airports Council International, World Airport Traffic Report 2007). Assuming the average passenger has one bag (some have more than one, some nil), this means that the baggage mishandling rate was one in 114 (just under 1%) but the total loss rate at one in 4,800 (0.02%). (The report states one in 2,000; I'm not sure how they got to that figure).

If you were to fly once a week you would, on average, have a bag mishandled about once every 26 months, and lose a bag every 7 years. If you are a 'normal' holidaymaker and your flight rate is four times a year, the mishandling is now once every 26 years and lose one every 91 years.

Add to that that the definition of 'mishandled' is not given, but I suspect it is any kind of delay even if the bag is quickly returned (I had a bag sent to me from lHR to BOH which arrived 2 hours after I managed to get there).

I reckon that most other industries would be very hard pushed to come up with a system that, over thousands of airports and millions of journeys ensures that 99.1% of the time you will get your bags (with 25-30% of the time a transfer involved) and 99.98% of the time you'll see them again.

Ll

[blackace]

BAA is fined £2,000 for every bag that does not make its flight by the airline, so it is in their best interest to get it on the flight on time, that includes transfer baggage.

Once it is on the flight it seems that then it is not so important, seems most bags are lost in arrivals.

I am amazed each day I walk through T1 arrivals at the sheer number of bags left lying around at the end of each day unclaimed for whatever reason.

[radeng]

Over the years, my average for lost bags has been

American Airlines - once every 36 flights
United/United Express - once every 12 flights
BA (when NOT interlining through CDG!) once every 100+flights
When interlining to BA through CDG with 4 hours or more to spare - every time. (4 times so far...)
America West once every 8 flights - and that with no connections, just an A to B flight.
Finnair - never - but only had about 12 flights with them.
SAS - never - but haven't flown them for some years.
Qantas - never - but only had 3 flights with them.
Lufthansa - flown rarely - every 3 flights.

The US airlines tend to push the figures up if you use a high proportion of the little commuter airlines where they can easily hit a weight problem. The introduction of small jets is helping there, though.

Llademos is right that the actual percentage is very low. Just that one baggae container going astray affects a whole load of people at the same , and so makes things look worse.time

[ash666]

My experience through AMS is atrocious. My bag(correctly labelled etc) only makes it about 66% of the time, at best.

[Pax Vobiscum]

radeng that sounds horrendous. Either the airlines have got it in for you, or I have led a charmed life. My current batting average is about 0.3% for delayed bags, I've yet to have one disappear completely. Admittedly I fly direct whenever I can and don't fly very often on US commuter lines ...

[radeng]

Pax,

Bear in mind that I've been averaging 80 to 100 flights per year for most of the past 30 years.....I also attempt to avoid CDG and AMS, which have lousy reputations.