adeben

On various posts dealing with lost/delayed/misplaced luggage, there occasionally is a statement that 'Alitalia", 'US Air', (Insert airline name) was somehow responsible. I suspect that baggage handling is NOT the responsibility of the individual airline, but of the individual airport authority. That is, once your bags disappear from your sight down the conveyer belt, they pass through customs/security/quarantine/whatever, and then appear in the baggage-handling area, where EMPLOYEES OF THE AIRPORT are responsible for loading them into containers and taking them to the appropriate planes. When they arrive at the intended destination, it is once again the airport authority that is responsible for delivering baggage to the correct carousel. The airline seems to play no part in the whole process except to book in the baggage, then send it to a third party for processing. And it is the same third-party that does baggage logistics at any particular airport for all airlines that fly there. Therefore, it seems to me to be incorrect to blame an airline for a baggage mishap. Or have I misunderstood the international baggage-handling process?

Dukey

IMO since the airline has independently decided to send that luggage to some "third party" to handle for them, get it on and off the plane, etc.,etc., that does not relieve them of any responsibility in terms of delivering it in a timely fashion.

If the airport authority employees were ultimately responsible I can just hear the responses at the "baggage problems" desk:

"Oh, your luggage was lost? Go flag down one of those luggage wagon drivers from the airport authority and ask THEM to find it for you."

Sue_xx_yy

I think you might be asking two questions:

1. who actually loses the luggage
2. who is responsible for the luggage

With respect to #2, you as passenger have contracted directly with the airline(s), not the respective airport(s), to transport your baggage. For example, the airline sets out the terms of what bags they will carry as part of the base ticket price, etc. etc. They are thus considered to be responsible for the transport of the baggage, insofar as the passenger is concerned.

With respect to #1, it might or might not be the airline that screws up. True, they might have done everything correctly, only to have their subcontracted airport baggage handlers screw up. On the other hand, if the airline desk agent mislabels your baggage, then it is not the airport's fault if their crews direct the bags to the mislabelled destination.

janisj

Some baggage handlers are airline employees. Some are airport emplyees. Some are 3rd party contractors employees.

Your contract is w/ the airline. The airline is responsible . . . . .

NeoPatrick

Every time my luggage has been lost (never more than 24 hours thankfully) whichever airline I was flying has admitted or claimed responsibility.

Rastaguytoday

I was on a FF first class flight through RDU to Brussels a few years ago. My luggage got 'left' in RDU. AA told me that they would deliver it the next day. However, by the time the luggage arrived in Brussels, the local AA office was closed for the day (13:00).

The next day, we are Thaylys to Paris. The luggage finally was delivered to us, after many phone calls, about 10 minutes before we went to the train station. We actually were standing on the curb waiting for our taxi when the luggage showed up.

In cases like that it was the left and right hand not knowing what they weren't doing. I'd rather run the bar at the Admiral's Club than have to listen to customer complaints all day long.

beaupeep

One time my husband and I were flying back home from Boston to Geneva via JFK. We checked in and went and sat at a window at the gate and saw my very distinctive vintage Marblehead handprints bag along with our others on a luggage cart being loaded into the plane that was right in front of our eyes. Fifteen minutes later there was an announcement that all flights in and out of NY were cancelled due to high winds and that we could go down to baggage claim and get our baggage and then get re-routed.

So my husband went for the bags and I stood in a line of what seemed like 300+ people trying to get to Europe, get to the front of the line after 25 minutes and there is still no sign of my husband. Of course they wouldn't re-route without both of us but the desk guy was nice enough to tell me to go look for my husband and he would not make me wait in the line again.

I go down to the baggage claim and there is DH talking to a baggage claim complaint advisor or whatever they might be called. Somehow, in 15 minutes and about 20 feet from the gate all of our luggage was lost but everyone else's came back. We finally just flew home without it and it took three days to turn up!

SeaUrchin

I often think of three pieces of luggage that I saw way out on the tarmac in Frankfort. All of the buses and the other transportation and baggage wagons cars skirted around them and it looked like they had been sitting out on the tarmac for days.

adeben

I guess the point I was trying to make was that in most countries any individual airport is run by an 'Authority'. That 'Authority' negotiates with the various airlines about usage rights, particularly the number of landing and take-off slots allocated to each airline. Imagine a situation where Singapore Airlines did not have access to JFK, and was finally able to negotiate such access. They would be required to use whatever company had been subcontracted BY THE AIRPORT AUTHORITY to load and unload baggage. I realise that each airline will assume responsibilty for missing luggage, but they seem to be assuming responsibility for a process that (a)they do not actually carry out themselves, and (b) they do not have a DIRECT contract with the firm who does. So I would guess that the greater percentage of luggage is 'lost' between complex and busy airport such as JFK or LHR or CDG than can be attributed to any particular airline, particularly if an airline uses those airports for many/most of its flights. But the airport would seem to be the key factor in baggage loss.

Sue_xx_yy

I think you may be right to the extent that airports, as much as airlines, play a large role in luggage loss: my guess would be that a busy airport is more vulnerable to this sort of thing than a quieter one.

The statistic I've read is that there are around 3.x pieces of baggage lost, on average, per 1000 customers on American domestic routes.

The source didn't give information on the definition of lost (if it turns up on my doorstep within 90 days, does that mean it was only 'delayed'?)

Also, my guess is that the true loss rate is at least slightly higher than 3.x per 1000, since at least some of those 1000 passengers, on average, would not be carrying any checked baggage at all, and should be excluded from the calculation.

Ackislander

Adeben mmay be right about the airport authority handling baggage in "most" countries, but that is simply not true at many (most?) airports in the US. Look out the window at the people unloading baggage, and you will see them in the ground staff uniform of the airline you are riding (or of another airline that has subcontracted the work for other airlines).

theemptycarousel

HI everyone, if I can, I would like to add some clarity to this subject as a prior manager of over 52 cities for baggage sevices and having attended meetings with the air transportation association and the international air transportation association regarding baggage in varios locations in the wold with international and domestic carriers.

I have also written a NEW book called the "Empty Carousel" A Consumer's Guide to Checked and Carry-on luggage. Check out the web site at www.TheEmptyCarousel.com where you can even contact me and I will get the information you seek if it is not talked about in the book and email you back.

The truth is, in 17 years in the airline industry, airport authorites do not hire or contract with any companies to my knowledge anywhere to handle checked baggage; they don't have the money to do this.

The airline either has its own employees provide this service or to save money, many airlines have eliminated their own high seniority higher paid employees and replaced them with FBO's of "Fixed Base Operators" which are not direct airline employees.

There are a number of FBO's out there world wide.

They look like airline employees but are not, what they are in most cases is CHEAP labor. Instead of the airlines paying $20.00 per hour to senior employees plus costly benefits, they hire FBO's with sstarting wage around $7.00 per hour with little or no benefits.And we all know, you get what you pay for but there are still some good employees who care that work for FBO's just not the majority.

Airlines are looking for any way to reduce costs and this is a big one for many who have gone this route. Bottom line is this does not benefit the customer because they do not care as much in many cases as the airlines own employees did.

Many airports do own the baggage conveyor systems that move the luggage but if these systems are not upgraded to handle the volumes of todays swelling passenger loads and increased checked baggage, the systems break down and bags miss flights all the time.

Also in the U.S. now that every bag checked goes through the TSA inspections, if TSA is not staffed adequately, bags back up and also miss the flights. Even if the airline does everything right, bags still miss their intended flights.

For more information and all the facts regarding your checked and carry-on luggage, visit www.TheEmptyCarousel.com for answers to all your questions. You can also find a link to the web site on Peter Greenberg website as I was a guest on his radio show March 31, 2007. Thanks for listening and I hope this information helps.

Scott
www.TheEmptyCarousel.com