The chances of losing your bag while travelling on an airline continue to fall with the global rate of mishandled bags per 1000 passengers dropping 12.25 per cent in 2016 to the lowest level ever recorded.
But the latest baggage report by technology company SITA shows the chances of losing a bag depends on the market in which you’re flying, with European airlines lagging those in the US and the Asia-Pacific when it comes to looking after luggage.
The SITA Baggage Report 2017 found the global rate of mishandled bags was 5.73 bags per thousand passengers in 2016 as passenger numbers reached an all-time high of 3.77 billion. This translated to 21.6 million bags worldwide, 1.7 million less than in 2015.
This was 70 per cent down on the global rate in 2007 but it still cost the industry an estimated $US2.1 billion to recover the bags and reunite them with their owners.
The Europeans recorded a rate higher than the global average with 8.06 mishandled bags per thousand passengers and performance declined compared to the previous year.
That compared with an Asia-Pacific result of 1.81 bags mishandled per 1000 passengers, down 2.3 per cent on the previous year, and the US rate of 2.7 mishandled bags per 1000 passengers. Asian airlines attributed their success to the deployment of advanced baggage technologies.
There were a number of reasons bags were mishandled but more than three quarters were delayed rather than damaged or stolen.
The critical pinch point where bags are transferred from one flight to another accounted for about 47 per cent of delays, broadly in line with 2015.
A failure to load a bag was responsible for 16 per cent of problems, while ticketing errors, bag switches, security issues and other problems accounted another 15 per cent of the mishandled bags, down from 19 per cent in 2015.
“Overall, delayed bags accounted for 77 per cent all mishandled bags in 2016, while 16 per cent were damaged or pilfered and 7 per cent were lost or stolen,’’ the report said.
The good news for travellers is that SITA expects the situation to further improve in the next 18 months as International Air Transport Association members respond to a resolution requiring that all bags e tracked throughout their journeys from June, 2018.
“It is frustrating for passengers and airlines when bags go missing but the days of not knowing where your bag is will soon to be a thing of the past,’’ said SITA president of air travel solutions Ilya Gutlin.
“We are on the brink of a new era in airline baggage management because the world’s airlines are committing to tracking baggage throughout its journey. This requires data capture, management and sharing across airlines, airports and ground handlers giving a better view of where each piece of luggage is at every stage.’’
