Lost Luggage Woes
April 29, 2009 | Uncategorized
As I was getting a haircut yesterday, for a half-hour I was forced to listen to a telephonic battle with an airline over lost luggage. More precisely, it wasn’t lost luggage but mistaken luggage — the shop owner and her husband had grabbed the wrong bag at the airport.
It was there by the phone, a big flaming red thing on wheels with an aluminum arm protruding from the top. I could only think it must have been one hell of a vacation in Cancun to tire her enough to mistake that bag at the airport. On the other hand, who am I to judge — perhaps she was just dumped at carousel 23 with a hundred others who find flamboyant suitcases irresistible.
I don’t know how her saga finally ended since I vacated the chair in mid-battle. But it did make me think of how lucky I’ve been over the years.
Despite my extensive travels, I’ve had few luggage nightmares since I try to travel only with carry-ons. But even back in my journalistic days, traveling with a ton of photo equipment and at least one large piece to be shipped in the hold, I’ve been fairly fortunate.
My most ludicrous moment was coming back from Rome in the late 1970′s. Alitalia was repositioning a 747 and decided to put 14 passengers on the flight to free up seats on another later that day. Yes — la dolce vita does exist — 14 passengers with an entire 747 to themselves. Unfortunately, when we arrived in New York the luggage of 11 of us had gone missing.
This morning, just moments ago in fact, I read an article in Forbes about “Airlines Least Likely To Lose Luggage.” One of their writers had waded through the Bureau of Transportation Statistics monthly report on airlines. It must be wonderful reading since in addition to information on flight delays and complaints, it also includes a section on mishandled luggage.
According to the government, between March 2008 and February 2009, the 19 largest carriers reported approximately five incidents of mishandled luggage per thousand passengers. Forbes, the trusty business publication it is, quickly calculated that since these 19 airlines carried 585 million people, 150,000 passengers had nasty little surprises when they arrived at their destination. That’s roughly the entire population of Dijon, France, or New York’s 52nd Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues.
According to the government the airline with the fewest luggage incidents is AirTran, followed by Hawaiian, Northwest, JetBlue and Continental.
The worst airlines — starting at the bottom — are American Eagle Airlines, Atlantic Southeast Airlines, Comair, Mesa Airlines and SkyWest — all regional operators contracted to major carriers.
Jim Ferri
