Lost baggage rate falls to record low

Fewer airline bags were lost or misplaced in 2013 than at any time in history, it has been revealed.

According to the new 10th annual SITA Baggage Report, which was released today (26 March 2014), airlines delivered more bags to their passengers last year than ever before. The rate of mishandled luggage in 2013 was 6.96 bags per thousand passengers, which is just half the rate reported 10 years ago, despite a 65.6% increase in passenger numbers over the same time period.

In fact the mishandled baggage rate dropped 21.2% in just 12 months from 2012 to 2013, and the total annual cost of missing luggage fell 19.9%.

“The industry has joined together to tackle the problem of mishandled bags, and we have seen great results. There is still more work to do, but 2013 was the best year ever, showing the benefits of this collaboration,” said Francesco Violante, CEO of airport technology company, SITA.

“SITA continues to invest in innovative technologies to drive the mishandling rate still lower. This includes self-service solutions for passengers such as self-service bag-drops and our BagJourney application programming interface, which provides end-to-end baggage tracking for integration into airline and airport systems, such as smartphone and tablet apps.”

In 2013, passengers reported 21.8 million mishandled bags. More than 81% of these were delayed bags, with transfers between flights named as the leading cause. While SITA admitted that transfer bags “remain a challenge” for the industry, it did note that the performance is improving. In 2013, transfer bags accounted for 45% of delayed bags – 23.2% less than in 2012.

Since 2003, the mishandled baggage rate has fallen 47.1%, while the cost to the industry of missing bags has been slashed 49.2%.

In total, 81.2% of total misplaced bags in 2013 were delayed, while 15.5% were damaged and just 3.3% were lost or stolen.