How does luggage go to the wrong place?
 

Just picked up husband (the one flying with scuba weights) from airport after diving trip to FL with his friend. One bag is in Atlanta. One bag is with him in Boston. It was a non-stop flight from FL. Assuming the bags were both tagged with BOS luggage tag, how does one end up in ATL? Delta knows where it is, will get it to our house tomorrow sometime - not especially stressed. But wondering how this happens.

<< Assuming the bags were both tagged with BOS luggage tag, how does one end up in ATL?>>

That's something you can't really assume - one of the main reasons luggage goes astray is it is mis-tagged.

That aside, other reasons are:

The luggage tag with the airport code somehow gets removed from the bag.

The luggage was checked-in too late to get on the correct flight.

The plane is overweight and one or more pieces of luggage is off-loaded or never even put on the intended aircraft.

The luggage gets mishandled at some point between check-in and flight take off and never gets on the plane.

The luggage is gets diverted along the way and is inadvertently put on the wrong aircraft.

You have a connecting flight and the luggage is not off-loaded the first aircraft.

The luggage handler was reprimanded by his supervisor and decided to get "back at the company' by diverting luggage to other destinations.

A dishonest person stole something out of the luggage and intentionally diverted the luggage to another airport to deflect suspicion to someone else.

There's probably a hundred more reasons why luggage doesn't get on an aircraft - your limited only by your imagination.

The most logical reason to me - it was mis-tagged I had happen once. Now I always ask to see the person attach the tag to my luggage. Husband said he saw them do this. They arrived early (flight was delayed), there was no connection. The only logical explanation in this case is human error - misread/mis-sorted tag.

Years ago our daughter's luggage never made it off the plane on UA flight BOS-IAD and UA was able to update us daily of it's travels (IAD to Mexico City to NYC to IAD to BOS and eventually, on another airline to CDG). It would have been amusing, but she found herself in Normandy and rural France in January with only the emergency items she packed in her carry-on.

Mistagged.

Last year we were flying to Mexico City from San Francisco. We checked two bags, and as we were leaving the counter, the agent said to me, "Have a great time in Barcelona!"

The second of our bags had been tagged for Barcelona. If the agent hadn't said anything, we would not have known until we arrived in Mexico.

I kind of felt like my bag was almost on its way to a better vacation than I was ...

TSA pulled it for inspection and then it got put on the wrong flight?

I've had bags tagged for San Jose, Costa Rica (SJO) end up at SJC (San Jose, California), SJD (San Jose del Cabo, Mexico), and SJU (San Juan, Puerto Rico). American serves all four destinations.

Back in the days when PanAm flew everywhere (when there was a PanAm), I flew to Frankfurt with them. My bag was not offloaded and continued on the same plane to Karachi, Pakistan. It made it back to me two days later.

If the bag missed the plane for some reason (because it was pulled by the TSA), the majority of Delta East Coast flights connect in ATL. With more options, that's probably why the bag was sent on there.

I ALways look at the code on the luggage tag. Not sure if it helps with mishaps but makes me feel better that at least I looked !

I always double check every bag tag before it is put on the bag. Not only the destination but the connections, too. Unfortunately, that only assures the bag is tagged properly--says nothing about what happens afterwards.

I check tags as well - have at least once prevented luggage from going on its own vacation without me.

I've had bags get lost that were on nonstop flights and tagged properly. It's just human error, that's all--people are looking at those tags and putting the bags in one spot if they are terminal or another if they are to be transferred elsewhere. Somebody can make a mistake and put it in the wrong place, that's all. That's what they did to mine, put it in the area to be transferred when it shouldn't have been.

it's actually surprising it doesn't happen more often.

In my case, the bag didn't get put out for the carrousel but luckily they eventually found it in some waiting area before it got put on another flight. Just wasted a couple hours of my time.

sometimes they get stuck on the belts, jammed on the belts and knocked off the belts. It is a maze underground with the belts. Our main feeder belt was mixed in with two other airlines so the baggage guys had to pick their bags off and not some other airlines. It is a miracle more aren't sent opposite places. We were DAB and we would get mixed up with DAY /Daytona and Dayton.