Lost Luggage

The facts on lost luggage are as follows. 3.5 billion bags fly from one location to another every year. 12 in every 1000 bags or 1.2% do not arrive on the scheduled flight. 99% of those lost are recovered within 3 days. The other 1% being lost for longer or never recovered. So in summary, the strike rate for bags arriving is very good and recovery of lost bags is also very good. One in 100,000 or 0.001% of bags are lost forever which means it is highly unlikely your bags will be gone forever.

If you do have missing baggage there will be an airline counter for missing baggage at this point. You will be required to fill in forms detailing your personal information and what the bags look like. You will be asked where they are to be on-sent to when they are relocated (your hotel, office, home or wherever you nominate). You will also be required to produce your luggage receipts that were given to you on check-in.

They will give you a telephone number to follow up with but usually, the airline will contact you when the bags are recovered. They will let you know that they are en route to your nominated delivery location. Sometimes they already know the whereabouts of your bags and will inform you at the counter what the next steps will be.

You need to follow up the airlines for lost baggage. Sometimes they are even known to have the bags in their office and not call the passenger. This is probably to do with people changing shifts and the new employee on shift thinking the employee on the previous shift already called. Airlines can can be inefficient on this. Remember it is an exception.

If you have lost luggage for more than 24 hours, there are compensation amounts available to purchase toiletries and similar items. The longer the luggage is lost, the more compensation you are entitled to. Increasingly the airlines make the process of collecting the compensation challenging. Receipts and documents needs to be filed to the airline in limited time frames. Some airlines have a daily rate which makes the process easier. Make sure you ask what you are entitled to when you complete the lost luggage forms.