Most of us will lose a bag at some point on our travels – so how do you minimise the risk? Alex McWhirter reports
Nobody takes lost baggage seriously – until it happens to them. But if an airline mishandles your bags either by losing them or delaying their arrival then it can cost you dear. In the worst-case scenario, your trip will be ruined (see panel overleaf).
The best brains in the industry have still not solved matters. But, finally, there are signs of improvement thanks to new technology and the simple fact that fewer passengers now check in their bags. Nevertheless, far too many items still go astray according to the latest research by air transport communications and IT firm SITA.
In 2009, the world’s airlines (both conventional and budget carriers) collectively mislaid 25 million bags. Although a 24 per cent improvement on 2008 and 40 per cent better than 2007, it still equates to 11.4 bags per 1,000 passengers. Simply put, it means that three or four passengers could arrive off a 350-seater B747 without their luggage. (We also mustn’t forget that these figures look better because fewer people have been travelling owing to the financial crisis.)
If your bags do go missing, it is comforting to know that compensation levels have risen, spurred on by the actions of consumer groups. Not so long ago, airlines would pay out a derisory sum, preferring that passengers contact their travel insurance firm. But new rules have upped the liability limit to more than £1,000.
So which airline should you book with to lessen the chance of your bags going astray? This important question is impossible to answer because individual carriers do not publish statistics. True, the AEA (Association of European Airlines) published figures for members on its website in the past, but they were taken down last year for “technical and political reasons”, according to a spokesman for the industry body. “The figures we displayed were subject to misuse and misrepresentation,” he says. “We are trying to find a formula [for presenting the statistics] that would satisfy the requirements of our members.”
In any case, the AEA figures only referred to its 36 member carriers in Europe. These are almost exclusively conventional airlines, so budget ones such as Air Berlin, Easyjet and Ryanair – who between them carried a sizeable 140 million passengers last year – were not included. Likewise, other large world airlines such as Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Singapore Airlines and United Airlines would not have appeared.
What the AEA figures showed was that some of Europe’s worst baggage offenders were the big hub carriers – Air France, British Airways, KLM and Lufthansa. That is because when passengers change planes at a busy aerial crossroads, there is a greater chance of something going wrong in the baggage-handling department.
This is backed up by SITA’s statistics. Its 2010 report stated that in 2009, 52 per cent of cases where bags were mislaid occurred during flight transfers. In contrast, “failure to load” covering point-to-point flights accounted for only 16 per cent.
At this point it is essential to highlight the difference between baggage that is actually lost – airlines make you wait 21 days before declaring an item as such – and that is delayed. James Fremantle, industry affairs manager for consumer group the Air Transport Users Council (AUC), says: “Passengers with delayed baggage remain in a state of limbo not knowing when or if their bags will turn up. When bags don’t arrive then it’s a particular concern for people booking a cruise starting from an overseas port who have probably flown in the night before. It’s also a concern for the passenger booking multisector trips because, if the bags are found, they might not catch up.”
Whereas the compensation for lost baggage is set by the Montreal Convention at a maximum figure of “Special Drawing Rights 1,131” (a sum of just over £1,000), there are no set rules for delayed baggage. That means the treatment you get will vary depending on the carrier and reputation for service, and where in the world you are. It can also depend on the type of ticket you hold and your loyalty card status.
If your bags do not arrive on the carousel, some carriers will fob you off and tell you to check back later. Others may offer a small amount – say, £20 or £30 a day – to tide you over. The idea is that these small amounts will cover emergency purchases of toiletries and underwear. Others will not make cash payments but prefer to reimburse you later for expenditure on seeing the receipts. But reader experiences suggest this can be a frustrating and long-winded process.
One thing is clear – airlines will not accept any liability for inconvenience or consequential losses for the delay. What happens after 21 days? That is when your baggage is considered lost and you can claim. But, says the AUC: “Like insurers, the airlines will be unlikely to settle your claim in full and may ask for a list of items and receipts. They will probably reduce the payment to cover depreciation.”
So what can you do to minimise the chances of it happening in the first place? First, it is wise to purchase travel insurance and to label your bags inside and out. Avoid placing important or valuable items in checked baggage. Ensure you check in well before the deadline – at busy airports, complex baggage systems may mean your case travels a couple of miles before it reaches the plane.
On a multisector trip, build some slack into the system should things go wrong by spending a few extra hours at each destination, and allow much longer than the airport’s minimum connecting time when changing planes. Lastly, pay special attention if you are making multiple connections involving separate carriers, especially if the latter are not members of the same alliance – their systems may not “talk” to one another.
Reader Mark Roberts recalls a trip to London City (LCY) from Phuket using Malaysia Airlines and KLM. When he checked in at Phuket, Malaysia tagged his bag through to LCY via Kuala Lumpur and Amsterdam: “I had a 12-hour layover in Amsterdam so I had time to check with KLM. The carrier’s staff found that although my bag had reached Amsterdam, it was not in the KLM system because Malaysia Airlines has no link to KLM. My bag was restored to KLM’s system manually for loading on the LCY flight. I advise noting tag numbers separately in case these get mislaid.”
So what are the airlines doing to improve matters? They talk about better baggage tracing systems that have brought down the average delay to 1.17 days. But while your bag might appear sooner than this, that advantage is lost if staff cannot process it in a timely fashion.
That was my experience when attending a trade show in Berlin a few years ago. My bag was delayed at Paris Charles de Gaulle (owing to a baggage handlers’ dispute) when using Air France. Although it reached Berlin Tegel the following morning, it had still not been cleared through Tegel customs by Lufthansa, Air France’s handling agent at the time, by the evening. So I personally had to visit Tegel and tramp out to the customs area on a freezing winter’s night to clear my own bag. If not, I would have had to wait several more hours.
Ironically, it is the fact that airlines are increasingly treating baggage as a source of ancillary revenue that has led to fewer pieces going astray. A number of US carriers now charge for checked bags on domestic routes, as do some budget carriers in Europe, while most airlines impose fees when two or more bags are checked (see “Watch your weight”). According to SITA, the fees are having an effect. In 2007 and 2008, 82 per cent of passengers checked bags but by last year this had fallen to 76 per cent.
Baggage fees have become a nice little earner. US carriers collected US$740 million during the first quarter of 2009, more than double the US$350 million they collected during the same period in 2008. SITA says the world’s airlines collectively gathered US$2.47 billion in baggage fees last year. In which case, passengers are right to demand higher standards.
READER EXPERIENCES
Melanie Kotsopoulos and her husband booked a “dream trip” to India departing Geneva in the week before Christmas last year. Unfortunately it was at a time when Europe’s major airports faced bad weather disruption, meaning their Lufthansa connection in business class via Frankfurt to Mumbai was lost.
She writes: “After spending two hours in a Frankfurt ticketing queue, we were rebooked to Mumbai using Lufthansa to London, then on to Dubai with Virgin Atlantic and finally to Mumbai with Emirates. Our bags never made it – they were lost in transit between Frankfurt and Mumbai. We felt like a ping-pong ball being bounced between Emirates and Lufthansa offices in India, with each passing responsibility to the other.
“As business class passengers, we felt we should not have been in a situation where we had to waste countless hours and precious holiday time dealing with both airlines. Instead of maximising our time touring such a fascinating country, we spent many hours looking for malls selling Western-style clothing and making calls from our rooms to expedite the return of our bags.
“According to the baggage tags, our missing bags reached Mumbai six days after we had left Geneva. Because we were touring India, it was another week before we could retrieve them.” Lufthansa offered €500 to cover the cost of clothes and toiletries.
A reader who prefers to stay anonymous flew British Airways business class out of Rome via London to Toronto. After a short stay in Canada, he was due to travel on to Rochester, Minnesota, for medical treatment. “I checked in well in time but the luggage did not leave Rome,” he writes. “By the time it reached Toronto three days later, I had left for Rochester. US customs did not allow my missing bag to cross the border [from Canada] so my luggage was returned to the UK before being sent back to the US and then transported to Rochester.
“In the meantime, I ran out of emergency supplies of my daily medication – the rest was in my checked baggage. Owing to the intricacy of my medical condition, I could not take the US equivalent of the drugs so was advised to interrupt the treatment at the clinic and return to the UK. It took four months for BA to refund the cost of the emergency items I had purchased. And now it says it will not refund the US$429 ticket change fee incurred in the US.”
