| Whenever I'm waiting at a baggage carousel for my | | | | After the automated system delivers a bag to its |
| luggage to come through, there's always a voice in the | | | | destination, workers wheel them out in bins and load |
| back of my mind saying that it's not going come-that, | | | | them onto the planes. In many airports, workers are |
| with the millions of things that can go wrong in an | | | | taught to visually verify that the tags match the flight, |
| airport, why should I expect my bags to be in the right | | | | but this doesn't always happen, and human error is |
| place? And when you add in all the other annoyances | | | | naturally a factor. |
| that go along with flying these days, both in the airports | | | | But the biggest trouble area of all is transferring |
| and on the cramped, smelly planes, the airlines haven't | | | | luggage from one flight to another. A single flight may |
| exactly earned my trust lately. I'm always half | | | | have passengers who will be transferring to as many |
| expecting them to lose my luggage simply through | | | | as twenty different connecting flights. This presents |
| sheer ineptitude and carelessness. But, for most of my | | | | obvious challenges to baggage handlers, but when you |
| life so far, I've been lucky. | | | | add in factors like late flights, bad weather, and tight |
| That is, until recently: Traveling from Denver to New | | | | time crunches, you can see how problems might |
| York on a major domestic carrier that shall remain | | | | occur. The good news is that, when bags miss their |
| nameless, I arrived at JFK only to find-after hours of | | | | connections, they're usually still on the grid, and they |
| waiting around, making calls, and dealing with unhelpful | | | | can easily be forwarded to their destination on the |
| customer representatives-that my bags were in | | | | next flight. |
| Phoenix. Things turned out fine; I got my luggage back | | | | Tips for Preventing Lost Luggage |
| within two days. But the experience left me wondering, | | | | 1. Carry your bags: When possible, the best solution is |
| how does luggage get processed, and how does it | | | | not to check your bags. Airlines are becoming more |
| get lost? What can do to make sure it gets to the right | | | | strict about carry-on procedures, but if you're just |
| place? | | | | taking a short trip, pack lightly. Fit everything into one |
| Where Baggage Goes after Check-in | | | | medium bag, and keep it close to you. |
| When checking in, you hand your bag to an airline | | | | 2. Put your contact information on your bag: Attach a |
| employee, who affixes a barcode that contains details | | | | hand-written tag with all of your contact information. In |
| about you, your address, your flight, and your | | | | the event of a barcode error, your hand-written tag is |
| destination. The bag then gets sent into the inner | | | | the only way to trace your bag to you. |
| workings of the airport, where a network of conveyor | | | | 3. Check in early, and book connecting flights that |
| belts electronically reads the barcode and directs your | | | | leave plenty of time: Tight time-frames are the main |
| bag to the correct flight. This is the first area where | | | | reason why bags get lost. The more time airline |
| things can go wrong. Barcodes may be poorly printed | | | | employees have to get your bag to the right place, the |
| or partially obscured, or the check-in person may have | | | | better. |
| entered an incorrect piece of information. In other | | | | 4. Remove old barcode tags: This is a no-brainer, but |
| cases, bags may slip off of the conveyor belt or get | | | | it's also easy to forget. Even in the same trip, your |
| caught in the machinery. There are workers to fix | | | | bags will require new tags for the return journey, so |
| these issues, but it may take a while to extract a stuck | | | | take the old ones off as soon as you think about it. |
| bag, which can cause it to miss its flight. | | | | |