Collecting baggage from the carousel
 

I lost a bag this week and I'm fairly sure that someone took it from the carousel, probably mistaking it for their own.

The thing is, even with all the security we have these days, how come there is no system to check that a person has the correct baggage? Anyone can take whatever bag they fancy and have a fairly good chance of making off with it. There is no visible customs presence at airports any more. You pick up a bag and you are through in just a few moments. Its that easy.

It should be impossible to take the wrong baggage. I wonder how often people never see their bags again?

Good question - can happen all too frequently and sometimes not by accident. Imagine an unscrupulous type who casually strolls up to the belt, lifts a case and walks off with it - who's going to know, unless he's spotted by the owner of the case?

Indeed - it's one of the hazards of Priority tagging of bags as well - anyone with malicious intent will naturally target bags with First/Priority tags on on the grounds that they are more likely to have valuable contents.

Having said that, the only time this ever happened to me it was a genuine mistake and with the assistance of the airline I got my bag back within a few hours (and the person who took mine got the almost identical bag that they left on the carousel). Fortunately it was Cathay involved. Lesser airlines would have shown no interest at all.

Another good reason to have a plain old suitcase with no "I'm an important person" tags on it.

Lesser airlines do take an interest. I came to Stansted with Ryanair very late in the evening. Took what I thought was my case and was almost home 30+ miles round the M25 when my mobile phone rang. It was Ryanair to say they had my case and I had taken someone else's. Drove back and reunited case with the real owner. Young man was really nice about it and we drove him to the car park. My case now has blue ribbon tied round the handle!

Been on the recieving end twice.

Once saw my suitcase disappearing out of the terminal at Dubai, just good fortune I was in the right place. Guy claimed he mistook it (somewhat difficult as the unique nature of what it was and the tags I had on it).

Other time I picked my own bag up at Heathrow T1 only for a large chap to half slap half push me on the back demanding I give him his bag back (it happened to be mine)

It always used to be the case in Chinese airports that your baggage tags were checked by screeners against your baggage receipts as you left the baggage hall. A typical chinese policy of job creation, but effective none the less - unless your had carry-on bags only, or had lost the receipt.
Sadly it doesn't seem to be happening quite so much anymore at the larger airports.

I guess the problem here is that if there were some final check by the security personnel 90% of the posters on here would be up in arms about what a waste of time it all is(!)

I would not have any issue at all if there were some quick way of evidencing you have collected the right bag, but short of showing someone the tag on the bag against the baggage receipt given at check in I can't see how to do it without adding to the hassle of baggage reclaim.

I agree that it'll probably add extra hassle - but outside of Europe this is generally lost in the muddle of people who haven't correctly filled in their customs declaration.

Now people who wait to fill in forms until they get to the desk, there's a whole other subject of annoyance!!!!

On domestic flights within Japan it's standard practice to check all baggage tags against your luggage receipt before leaving the carousel area. It is done efficienctly and does not add any extra time to getting out of the airport because there are always plenty of staff on hand to do it. It is surely a common sense approach?

This does not just happen on the carousel. Was on the Paddington Heathrow Express on Saturday when after the stop at T1/2/3 and on our way to T4 a young guy realised someone had got off with his suitcase. There was a lone suitcase sitting in the luggage rack in front of me that was unclaimed. Another case of mistaken identity - nondescript black Samsonite canvas rollaboard.

Ozzy

Don't laugh but it standard practice in Lagos (of all places) to have the baggage tags checked by an official from Customs against your ticket. No kidding. I nearly fainted when I saw them doing it!

I see a common theme developing here:

Smooth efficient departure security = smooth efficient arrivals security

Departure Security designed to relieve you of any important stuff we will happily sell you back in our airside shopping malls (BAA) = We no longer care about your bag, so long as you get into the shops at the baggage hall exit as quickly as possible.

Checked in really early for two domestic flights over the weekend. My bag was first out on the carousel both times. What made it particularly gratifying was I sat reading my book in cozy aircraft seat while the sheep were queuing (fantastic word that, look at all those vowels, magnificent for scrabble) for the door. When they had left I wandered with no great haste for the carousel, took my bag when it emerged from the door as I arrived and sauntered off.:cool: My purple bag does stand out though.

also in the US
 

Saw baggage personal controlling the tags in BOS on UA as well, although within 4.5 years only once or twice...

That's the key to jon, needs staff to do the job quickly and efficiently. I doubt you could use either of those words with Heathrow in the same sentence...

Jon & Rush,

Guess most airports could do it with relative ease if enough resources (infrastructure space, staff & IT) were put into it.

But who pays? I can see the howl of protest on this site at the cost/tax introduced to enable this to happen; never mind the sniping at the staff who would do this.

In many, many, many years of airport ground handling I know that this event is, in real terms, very rare (I accept that if you are the unfortunate it is very distressing and frustrating). I would estimate that the incident rate is at less than 1% of the mishandled baggage rate which in turn is a very, very (even with the extreme recent publicity relating the LHR) low ratio - lower than 1:10,000 - of the total number of bags handled.

Was in Japan in February and took a couple of internal flights as well as those in/out - baggage retrieval sticker was checked against the baggage tag each time. Took a few seconds.

The problem, isn't restricted to hold baggage, either. I once had my handbag lifted from the end of the conveyor-belt outbound, after it had been through the scanner. I ran after the woman who'd picked it up and she apologised and handed it back. However, I noted that she then kept walking and didn't go back to find her own.