Mishandled Luggages
According to a report from the Department of Transportation, airlines “mishandle” on average about 1.5% of the mobility devices they transport.
Just in Oct. 2022, the most recent month for which data is available, airlines in the United States, carried 72,085 mobility devices such as wheelchairs and scooters, and the mishandling rate was a surprising 1,092 incidents over the course of that month.
The most common luggage problems happen during transfer. It is one of the primary reasons luggages can be delayed or lost. This haplens when handlers do not have adequate time to transfer bags between flights. The chances of mishandling increases the more baggage is transferred, making trips with multiple stops more vulnerable to luggage issues.
Human errors, like incorrect tagging or loading mistakes, can also be the reason why baggages get lost. Bags might get tagged for the wrong destination at check-in. Incorrect tagging is likely to happen when a trip includes connecting flights. Or, even if a bag is correctly tagged, baggage handlers might load a bag onto the wrong airplane. This may not happen often, but it can’t be fully disregarded.
As per Luggage Hero, there were more than 684,000 lost and mishandled bags at the major US airlines just in the first quarter of 2022. This equated to approximately seven bags out of every 1,000, or 0.7%. American Airlines’ average came in slightly higher, at nine per 1,000 or 0.9%. Allegiant performed far better, with less than two bags per 1,000 going missing.
It is true that baggage mishandling is not a new thing before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. But the global health crisis caused many adverse impacts on the commercial travel industry, which includes staffing shortages at the busy airports. These resulted to bags being mishandled, damaged or lost. The best thing to do is make sure to check if your bags are properly tagged and you are using sturdy luggages for check in.
