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Airlines lost record number of bags last year
By Dan Reed, USA TODAY

Airlines worldwide lost a record 30 million bags last year, a number boosted by a global surge in travelers, a study issued Monday says.
Last year, the world's airlines boarded about 2 billion passengers who checked 3.7 billion bags, according to the study from SITA, a Switzerland-based technology consultant for the airline industry. Airlines mishandled about 1%.

Neither the rate of baggage mishandling nor the average length of time it takes for mishandled bags to catch up with their owners — about 31 hours — has changed much in recent years, SITA executive Rich Fiorenza says.

About 240,000 of the lost bags never reached their owners.

Fiorenza says the sheer number of people flying is pushing the number of mishandled bags and the sum spent to reunite bags with owners to new levels.

Though a 99% success rate might be considered outstanding in many fields, Fiorenza says, airlines need to meet a tougher baggage-handling standard because of the huge number of customers affected.

"It remains that 30 million bags were mishandled last year," he says. "And if one of them was yours, you don't care that 99% were handled right."

Mishandled bags are a major customer service issue that can undermine a carrier's corporate image, he says. And mishandled bags carry a huge cost for airlines.

Last year, airlines spent an estimated $2.5 billion returning lost bags to their owners, or on compensation to owners of bags that were never returned. That's up from the $1.6 billion that airlines spent in 2004 dealing with mishandled bags.

"That's right off the industry's bottom line, a totally needless cost," Fiorenza says.

About 61% of all mishandled bags in 2005 got lost during the process of transferring them from one flight to another, SITA says. As a result, passengers on non-stop flights have a significantly smaller chance of having their bags mishandled than do passengers with connecting itineraries.

About 15% of mishandled bags got that way in 2005 because the airlines failed to load them on the proper flight.

Another 9% of mishandled bags encountered ticketing errors, passenger mistakes or security delays.

Earlier this year, U.S. Department of Transportation figures showed that U.S. carriers lost about 10,000 bags a day on average last year. The rate for mishandled luggage had soared 23% from the previous year and was the domestic industry's worst performance since 1990.

Follow-up report

Better bag tracking is possible
Days after a report estimated that the world's airlines temporarily lost 30 million bags last year, an international airline industry group touts radio frequency identification technology (RFID) as the best fix.

Today, airlines mainly use bar codes and scanners to track bags. But Andrew Price of the International Air Transport Association says that bar codes only have a 76% accuracy rate, vs. 99% for bag tags with small computer chips containing RFID technology. Price spoke during an ATWOnline webcast Wednesday.

Besides improving their ability to track bags, he says airlines could save $768 million a year because RFID readers are cheaper to buy, easier to operate and easier to maintain, So why haven't airlines adopted it? Cost. Price acknowledges that the costs remain uncertain and encoding the tags still poses a challenge. Delta became the first US airline to try RFID technology several years ago, but later backed away until costs fell.

The webcast will be available for replay after 12:30 p.m. eastern time today. -- Barbara De Lollis

The facts are true! Ive lost at least one bag on the last 4 trips Ive taken! Phuck AA

No doubt it happens, but it's not only AA. It happens on all carriers throughout the entire industry.

I've flown numerous airlines throughout my lifetime, but mostly AA, both domestic and international flights. I have only had one instance (Delta Airlines - about 10 years ago) where they lost one of my bags, but it was delivered to my hotel the next day.

With well over 60 flights on AA, they have NEVER lost one of my bags. Am I lucky ? Maybe. You can say "Phuck AA" all you want, but IMHO, they're a solid airline. Obviously, YMMV! But it's all good. The less you fly AA, the more seats that'll be available for me!!!!

Respectfully,
MG

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You ALWAYS have an option ....... "NEXT" !!!

Actually as I recall the news report there where at least 2 airlines and maybe more that had worse records than AA. The 2 I remember were US Air and Delta.

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