Do we actually get back a lost luggage?
 

With so many lost luggage complaints surfacing everyday, can we have a precise idea whether airlines are really sincere in handling baggage complaints? Barring a few, most airlines do not even have a proper baggage info policy up on their website.

I usually don't check any luggage but on occasion I don't have a choice. Out of the 20+ times I did, the luggage was "misplaced" 3 times. Once it was actually at the airport, arriving on an earlier flight during some irregular ops due to weather delays, etc., second time it took AA about 12 hours to deliver it to my hotel in LAX and finally the third time it took them about a day and a half to have it delivered to my house. Keep in mind that I live ~60 miles away from the nearest AA airport, Tampa. I live in Sarasota.

My experience does not guarantee anything, but I just wanted you to know that there is always hope!

Good luck!

As someone who did a modest amount of business flying for many years (and still does some)in addition to pleasure travel and who ALWAYS checks bags, I have flown far more than 500 flights, domestic and international, in the last ten years without having a single piece of baggage delayed. Once I could not find my bag in Atlanta because it had arrived on an earlier flight and was with hundreds of other bags, but I was delayed, not the bag.

Like the stock market, past performance is no guarantee of future performance and this string of luck could end with the next flight, of course, but I think people on this list obsess a lot more about lost luggage than they need to.

I travel constantly (both international and within the US). Of all the hundreds of flights I've taken, I think my luggage has been delayed about 6 times. In most cases, I got the suitcase within 24 hours. When I went to Senegal - it actually took them 4 days to get it to me. In all cases, they gave me a number to call and check and I thought they handled it quite well. Each airline gave me a sheet with directions, and an escalation point if I wasn't happy. I thought that, considering the issue, they did the best they could...

Luggage hasn't arrived with me twice

1st time it beat me home as it went to my local airport rather than the airport where I'd got a rather good deal

2nd time it arrived 24 hours later - unfortunately I was travelling the day after 10th August 2006 from the UK which meant I spent a whole day in tropical heat with nothing more than the clothes I was already wearing with not even a toothbrush to my name - and nowhere to buy one

My son came home on Panama airlines. His luggage arrived the next day :))

I think he is VERY lucky as his suitcase was only delayed.

I think I am lucky too as his gift to me was in that suitcase ;)

(I don't know what he brought, he wouldn't tell, and being jetlagged and all, we haven't seen each other yet)

We must be cursed. My husband and I fly quite a bit, primarily on international routes, and between us our luggage has been misplaced six times in the last three years. Three different airlines, five different routes.

On one occasion we found ourselves in the Swiss Alps in the dead of winter with only lightweight jackets and short sleeve shirts, having arrived from SE Asia. Of course it was the one time we went out of our way to pack as little as possible in our carry ons.

The good news is that our luggage always seems to catch up to us. In every instance our final destination has been several hours away from our arrival point, yet our luggage always appears - eventually - longest wait has been four days.

We now take more in our carry ons just in case...

This is a question about which I have been curious for a long time.

As I noted earlier, my luggage (so far) seems not to get lost. My luggage is not black. Yes, it gets dirty, but that is the official road warrior look.

Do those of you with bad experiences with delayed luggage have black suitcases?

In probably hundreds of flights over the past 25 years, I can think of three times that my luggage didn't arrive when I did. I always received it within 24 hours. I don't think it's as big a problem overall as everyone makes it out to be, but when it happens, even if it's just once, it's a big inconvenience.

Wow, I have not thought of myself as lucky, but perhaps I am.

In several hundred flights over the past 6 years (99% with checked bags), I have only experienced delayed luggage one time, and it was delivered to my hotel within about 3 or 4 hours.

It was rather disheartening watching bag after bag come out and then, the carousel just stopped - no more bags. I feel for those that have had to experience that multiple times.

::fingers crossed:: for better (or continuing) luggage luck for everyone.

Ackislander: interesting! I fly 3-4 times a year, my suitcase is now navy blue, before that was red.

Another theory: luggage checked in earlier gets on the plane, checked in later is delayed, can this be true?

"Another theory: luggage checked in earlier gets on the plane, checked in later is delayed, can this be true?"

Don't think so...that provides no explanation for connections.

"It was rather disheartening watching bag after bag come out and then, the carousel just stopped - no more bags...". I've been down this road this 6 times and now quite sceptical about checking my baggage. If only we had more carry on allowances.

:))"luggage checked in earlier gets on the plane, checked in later is delayed" is a funny theory, but I've almost come to a conclusion that this might be true!!

In general the rate of baggage lost is relatively small, it's more or less random. Well, unless it's not. Like the BA mess at LHR couple weeks ago, or USAirways at PHL a few Christmas ago.

If you're flying through those situations, then it doesn't matter how "lucky" you are, you probably will run out of that luck in a hurry in those situations.

I have had my checked bag not arrive with me on two occasions and both times it was somewhat predicable. The first time I made it to the airport just in time to make an earlier flight. The check-in agent even told me that my bag would likely not make it so I don't know why she let me on the earlier flight. It was delivered to my home that evening. The second time my Reno to SFO flight on United was delayed and I missed my Air Canada conection to Toronto. I was put on the next United flight to Toronto and filled out the lost bag paperwork with United. The automated tracking system had no idea of where it was. It occured to me that since it was originally tagged to conect to an Air Canada flight I should contact them. Much to my surprise a live person picked up the phone and I explained the story. A couple of minutes after getting off the phone with Air Canada I got a call from United...my bag had been located and it was soon delivered to me at home. The moral of this story is that if two airlines are involved it might be worth contacting both of them.

I've never had lost luggage but have had a couple mis-directed.

I think that any experience over 5 years old is not applicable now, because so much has changed.

Once, in the early 90's I was scheduled to fly AGP-MAD-MIA-ORD-LAX, the first two on Iberia the last two segments on UA. At MAD, I was able to change my flight to be MAD-LAX nonstop. My lugggage went the long way, I think, but I got it back within a day or two.

About a year ago, maybe two, I got on a plane at IAD with two pieces of luggage just as the door to the plane was closing. The bins were full so they gate checked the bags. No luggage was there when I got to LAX. The next stop for the plane was GUA. My luggage spent two or three nights at the airport in Guatemala City, one bag having my laptop in an easy access pocket. Got everything back ok.

In both of these cases I did something unusual: changing routing while enroute, and gate checking (cabin checking) luggage on a transcon 757.

Regarding the theory about black luggage...

Some of our luggage is black, but not all, and it's well marked inside and out.

In three of our recent lost luggage incidents the transit desk in Singapore failed to move our luggage from our Garuda flight to our connecting Singapore Air flight, despite issuing boarding passes and having 4-8 hours to do so. I suspect this was just an internal glitch involving flights arriving from Indonesia, but I think they've finally worked things out.

In one case, we were issued boarding passes from Singapore to Zurich, but the transit desk employee only checked our luggage through to Copenhagen. Oops - a minor oversight - no big deal.

Lufthansa managaged to lose my husband's luggage BOTH WAYS from Singapore to Amsterdam via Frankfurt and back. There was no apparent reason for this - two connecting flights on the same airline, plenty of time to connect, and checking in hours before the flights.

My most recent luggage mishap involved United on a flight from ORD-Narita-Singapore. The flight from ORD was re-routed inflight to SFO due to mechanical problems. We stayed overnight there, then flew from SFO to Narita the next day. United kept our luggage overnight and I assume it was kept on the plane, but they managed to leave it in Narita, despite a five hour layover.

So one never knows....

Well in all my travels I can't remember my bags ever being lost...not that it doesn't happen because obviously it does. The one that really got me though was we booked a flight to guam on continental from hawaii, ended up having to change to singapore. Our husbands are military submariners so we were meeting them in port and of course you can never count on military to be where they are supposed to be at the right time..they ended up sending us to guam through philipines and then connecting to singapore air from there. We arrived with all our baggage (the flight was a big problem, but a different story), however on the way home in the philipines, they literally took all 4 of us outside and we had to point out all our bags and have them put on the plane personally. We went on our way arrived back to hawaii and waited and waited and waited. A friend of mine's bag never came off....AND to answer the black bag comment..her bag was bright pink!!..so bright pink bag we went beneath to have them put on the plane and saw them transfer it to the plane, somehow got lost..haha..it was returned a few days later though.

I think we have more of the luckier passengers in this discussion, or maybe lost baggage is confined to only a nano-fraction of flyers!!:)

I've had delayed luggage 7 times in my traveling life and I'm not nearly as frequent a traveler as most of you. Furthermore I only check bags for overseas trips, so that limits me to about twice a year for bag-checking. So given how infrequently I check my luggage, I'm quite unlucky with luggage delays. :-(

But on the other hand, I'm lucky I always get it back within a reasonable time frame. The glass is half full. :-)

As for why it happens--I always arrive early at the airport so that's not the problem. It's my observation that it happens most frequently when I have a really short layover. And sometimes that short layover will get shorter if my first segment is delayed, hence I'm running like a madwoman to catch my next flight. My suitcase can't run as fast as I can. :-))

For myself, only twice. Once coming back from Hong Kong, with a short connection at DFW, around 1990. AA delivered the bag to my home in Houston next day.

Another time, 1998, flying BOS-MSP-YQR (Regina, Canada). Short connection at MSP because of delay. Went to YQR to pick up luggage next day at the customs office there.

That's it. I do check bags about 50% of the time now. For long trips to Hong Kong/China, and on the return legs from Europe.

Here's tidbit posted on our company's internal website about traveling and checking bags - put a copy of your itinerary inside the bag. If the outer tag gets torn off, they can look inside and the airline can see where you are and where you are going.

You can thank a travel agency for that tip...

My first overseas trip was in 1989 as part of a high school exchange with students in Spain. On the return trip (AA I believe) one of my two matching blue suitcase made it back to Boston via JFK. The second disappeared at JFK. I cried over the loss of new clothes and gifts, filled out the paperwork, and was reimbursed about $300. Six months later, I got a call from Air Pakistani Airlines saying they had my bag. Didn't even know such an airline existed! My bag was intact with nothing missing and covered in tape and labels written in what I assumed were middle eastern languages. So, I got the cash and the bag...eventually!

rkkwan, be careful next time when you fly. you had baggage prob in 1990, then 1998, I think another one is lurking...it's 2007;)

We check our main bags, and have small carryons with absolute necessities.

Our only delay was when we visited Fairbanks in the winter; I took an extra case to the airport, and we put our coats, gloves, scarfs, hats, etc. into this case after arriving at our local airport and checked it, since I didn't want to deal with those bulky items during the flight. When we arrived at Fairbanks, it was 45 below zero, and guess which bag they had misplaced. We sprinted to the shuttle, and from the shuttle into the hotel, and early the next day the airline delivered the lost bag; I know my wife was disappointed as she wanted a new coat.

Most of our flights involve a plane change, and it is not uncommon that there is, for one reason or another, little time between flights, but our luggage has always made the connection, even when we didn't. Today we arrived at IAH at 1010am, and our connecting flight had started loading at 0950, so we really had to hustle to make the connection (they seem to always involve two far separated gates, too), but our bags arrived at home with us. I know a man who worked in baggage handling, and he said they had a specially assigned person on their crew to expedite bags where there is little time, and they certainly must know their way around their airport better than me. One time, we were unable to make a connection, so they put us on a later flight; when we got home, our bags were not on the carrousel, so I went into the luggage office to file the requisite report, and our bags were sitting in the office - they had made the connection when we couldn't.

When I think of how many pieces of luggage are handled, the time constraints, and the often poor condition of the luggage, I think the airlines do a pretty good job in this respect.