Traveler's Edition
Gone are the days of lost luggage, almost. These days airlines are doing everything to keep your luggage from getting lost, from using radio-wave scanners to luggage tracking apps, and it’s paying off.
Passengers flying onboard American Airlines can track the location of their luggage through an app, while Delta Air Lines is using radio-wave scanners to make sure the right luggage is on the right flight. These are just a couple of the tech advances airlines are investing in, which has led to an all-time low rate of lost of mis-directed luggage.
These stats come from a new study by SITA, a Geneva-based airline tech company. The report surveyed 440 airlines and ground handlers and saw that the rate of lost luggage dropped 10.5% in 2015 to 6.53 bags per 1,000 passengers. That’s a pretty good rate considering around 3.5 billion people took to the skies that year.
Airlines are working hard to keep their passengers happy and are saving money in the process. The cost of mishandled bags was upwards of $4.2 billion in 2007 but dropped to $2.3 billion in 2015. It turns out that it’s quite expensive to recover misplaced bags or reimburse travelers when the bags disappear off the radar.
Looks like we can all relax; it looks like our luggage is in good hands!
