Summer of Lost Luggage: Airlines Dealing With Surge in Delayed, Lost Bags

Air travel has been rocky this summer.

Besides flight cancellations and delays, lost and delayed bags are just another headache travelers are dealing with.

As lost luggage piles up around the country and world, the nightmare stories are piling up, too.

There's the local teen who arrived in France for a soccer tour, while his luggage did not. In another instance, an Air Canada passenger who lost his luggage while flying through from Toronto to Austin via DFW Airport. He claimed to have made 76 calls to find it and only got through to an agent three times.

These stories have become the norm during this chaotic and record breaking summer travel season.

Data recently released by the Department of Transportation shows nearly 220,000 bags were “mishandled” by U.S. airlines in April 2022, meaning they were lost, damaged, delayed or stolen. That level of mishandled bags in April was more than double the roughly 94,000 cases of mishandled luggage in April 2021.

These numbers are expected to be worse this summer.

"We are seeing a symptom of a bigger problem. It's not just lost luggage," said Roy Cohen, a logistics expert and CEO of AI platform Fetcherr.

The problem is that airports and airlines don't have enough staff to handle the surge in travelers as well as their bags.

"Because to train the people to handle the luggage takes time. It takes time to hire pilots, to hire flight attendants. These are people that, at end of the day, are in charge of our lives," said Cohen.

It's gotten so bad that Delta Airlines even flew a plane loaded with 1,000 bags – not people – from London to Detroit.

Experts say there’s no quick fix to all this.

"It's all over the world. It's not just a U.S. problem. And it's not an airline specific problem. It's a global industry problem,” said Cohen. “It's a once in five decades [issue] because we are in a new reality. And you cannot use yesterday's technologies for today's issues. And this is exactly what's going on today. In the industry, I’m talking with many, many airlines and they are absolutely on it and they care a lot about their customers. But it's a process and we need to be patient."

He said a solution will come when demand will slow down after the summer, as airlines and airports update the way they streamline the luggage process through new technology and other upgrades.

"I think that airlines today, post-COVID, are updating and they are doing the best they can. It's not a it's not black and white. They cannot just turn on a switch and it will happen," Cohen explained. "It's a huge infrastructure, from luggage to revenue management -- it's this entire infrastructure. And airports are the same. It will take a long time -- it will take I believe, a decade to solve this problem."

In the meantime, here's some tips from travel experts to avoid losing your bags:

• If you can, avoid checking a bag. There are reports of people are choosing to travel with carry-ons only.
• If you do check a bag, get a tracking device like an Apple tag, put it inside the bag so you can track it on your cell phone.
• Don’t put expensive valuables or items you absolutely need, like a laptop, inside your checked bag.
• Make sure to put an ID tag with your name and phone number both outside and inside your bag.
• Take photos of your luggage before you travel in case it gets lost.

Per U.S. regulations, airlines must compensate passengers for lost, delayed or damaged luggage, up to a limit. Policies vary airline to airline so check with the airline you are flying with. Be sure hold onto those check bag receipts because they'll ask for it.

According to CNBC, if your bag is declared lost, you need to first visit the airline's lost luggage desk, which is usually in the baggage claim area of the airport. Ask a gate agent for more details. The airline must compensate you for the bag’s contents, subject to depreciation, up to a preset maximum. That maximum liability is $3,800 for domestic flights and about $1,800 for international flights, according to the Transportation Department. (Airlines can pay more but aren’t required to.)

The carrier must also refund any fees paid for checking the bag. Airlines are also on the hook for up to another $20,000 for a lost or damaged “assistive device” for a traveler’s disability, including crutches, walkers, wheelchairs, hearing aids or prosthetics, for example.

If your bag is delayed, those maximum liability limits also apply to delayed bags. Payment to travelers may include out-of-pocket costs for additional clothing or other purchases they make out of necessity due to the delay. These are called “reasonable, verifiable, and actual incidental expenses” incurred while a bag is delayed. Airlines aren’t allowed to set a daily cap for these interim expenses (up to $50 a day, as an example).