Air industry cut bag mishandling in 2009

Airline passenger bags going astray fell by nearly a quarter last year and almost all that did were quickly found and returned to their owners, a report said on Thursday.

The improved handling meant that just over 1.1 percent of checked baggage failed to reach its destination in time for normal pickup last year as against 1.45 percent in 2008 and 1.8 percent in 2007, the Geneva-based SITA grouping said.

The figures, issued in SITA's annual Baggage Report, showed that for passengers in 2009 this meant that just 11 in every 1,000 found their luggage missing at their arrival airport against 14 for every 1,000 in 2008 and 18 in 2007.

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SITA, which provides communications and computer services including a baggage-tracking system to the air transport industry worldwide, said the 2009 improvement could be partly attributed to a 2.6 percent decline in passenger numbers.

But that drop, accounting for some 60,000,000 fewer travelers and potentially some 600,000 fewer mishandled bags, was far outweighed by the decline in luggage going astray from 33 million pieces to 25 million, its Chief Executive Officer Francesco Violante said.

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Apart from having fewer angry passengers, the airlines also benefited by savings of $460 million on special deliveries of missing baggage to its owners in a year when overall industry losses reached $9.4 billion.

In 2009, SITA said, more than 96 percent of luggage which went astray was returned to passengers within 48 hours. The rest went unclaimed or, in rare cases, were stolen.

Some 52 percent of mishandled bags go astray during transfers from one flight to another, and the rest for various reasons — including airport problems and customs and security inspections — to be loaded onto their original flight.