Be very sure on the specifics of this.
I am.
Bags can and often do travel without the accompanying passenger, as knobbygb says usually when they've been left behind.
Presume
they’ve refers to the bags not the passenger?
They are then known as "Rush" bugs and undergo extensive screening to ensure the contents are acceptable and are marked as such. How else could your bag be returned to you should it go missing.
So pax flies, bags left somewhere, they then become “Rush” bugs. That all makes sense.
If a bag has remained onboard when a passenger has no showed then it is a very different matter, and there will be consequences. Even if the dispatcher at origin does not spot the bag count discrepancy, it will be spotted on arrival and there are severe penalties.
This applies. Two large bags, no-show passenger, as in my first post above. So whose rule is it? And what are the consequences/severe penalties?
Are you 100% certain it was not a rush bag?
Going by the above definition of a rush bag, yes.
“Any bag left off a flight that a passenger travels on, must travel unaccompanied on another flight for it to be reunited with the passenger. This must be a daily occurance. Makes one wonder !”
Yes – I think that is obvious, but it clearly is not the question in this thread. See my first post.