Missing luggage: Fighting lost cause

Baggage is one of the aviation industry's great unsolved problems. Engineers have built jets that can soar at twice the speed of sound, carry almost 900 people and stay aloft for nearly 24 hours. But the industry has yet to ensure a piece of luggage reaches its destination along with its owner. Last year, more than 31 million bags -- around 1.4% of all checked luggage -- arrived late, industry officials say. Roughly 1.8 million bags never arrived. Some take unexplained detours.
When Chloe Good started a round-the-world trip last October, her backpack didn't even make the first leg, a hop from New York to Chicago on United Airlines. Replacing clothes, malaria pills and the bag when she reached Paris cost far more than United's $1,491.14 reimbursement check, she says. The 25-year-old Miami native says she exchanged so many calls and emails with United's luggage agent in India that he told her about his love life and invited her to visit him in New Delhi.
"I was laughing because I didn't want to cry," recalls Ms. Good. Four months later, in rural Morocco, she got an email from United saying it had found her bag and wanted to ship it to her. Unable to carry two backpacks, Ms. Good had United send it back home. A United spokesman says the situation was "exceptional."
Many agents accept items far bigger than they should. In regions with lots of migrant workers, such as the Middle East, people routinely try to check overweight bags packed with swag for home or items so heavy -- including car engines and cement blocks -- they halt baggage belts.
Once a bag disappears from view, it travels down long belts at 7 feet per second as lasers try to read its destination from matchbook-size bar codes affixed at check-in. Many travelers keep old tags as souvenirs of previous trips.
14/08/09 eTurboNews, USA

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Foreign Aug 2009