
Unclaimed Baggage Center: The Shop for Lost Luggage (2015) - apsec112
https://thepointsguy.com/2015/06/unclaimed-baggage-center-the-shop-for-lost-luggage/
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mattlondon
I left a tablet in a seat-back pocket earlier this year.

I phoned the airline, they had found it, I was able to positively ID it (work
asset-tag/barcode + a few notable dents/scrapes etc) and was generally
relieved. Due to logistics they had to forward it on to London Heathrow for me
since I was not passing through Helsinki airport where they had it. ~40 euros
to get my work tablet back - bit steep but ok, sure, I'll pick it up when I
get back to Heathrow.

But then _they_ lost it somewhere between Helsinki Airport and London
Heathrow! Trying to get through to _anyone_ has been an absolute nightmare -
no one knows anything, airlines have no idea where the lost property goes, the
lost property offices (there are several different & unrelated lost property
offices at Heathrow!) have no idea what is coming from where or from who or
from what airlines. Its chaos and everyone just shrugs their shoulders - the
Helsinki people just said "we sent it to Heathrow - its there somewhere" (I
guess they've never been to one of the largest airports in the world with 5
terminals). One of the lost property offices in heathrow wont even let you
contact them - how the hell is a lost property office that you cant contact
supposed to work?! Its really infuriating.

It sickens me to think of my work tablet that was lost, then found, then paid
to be sent back home, then lost again, then ending up for sale somewhere like
this just because of pure disorganisation, incompetence, and slopey-shouldered
"not my problem pal" attitudes.

I really dont believe any comments from airlines et al saying they try "really
hard" to re-unite lost items based on my experience.

I wonder how much of that stuff in that store _should_ have reached its owner
but was lost _again_ due to screw-ups or people just not giving a crap.

Sigh.

</still-have-a-chip-on-my-shoulder-about-this>

~~~
wink
I once left a Kindle in the the seat pocket and noticed promptly after
deboarding, just late enough to not be able to go back. Went to the retrieval
company (it was not the lost&found office, at MUC there's a small office by
one company that seems to exclusively handle this sort of stuff) and they
phoned someone. The result was that the cleaning crew had just been in there
and nothing was reported found. :/

~~~
Symbiote
With the time the cleaning crew had to clean a plane, I wouldn't be surprised
if they really didn't find it, and the passenger in the next flight took it.

(A child was sick on me once, and I helped her dad clean up a bit. We joked to
the cabin crew that they'd need to get some extra cleaning, and they
essentially said that wasn't going to happen until the end of the day, and
even that wouldn't be thorough.)

------
joshvm
In Beijing airport, as you leave immigration, there's a box with a sign saying
"take a free lighter" or something to that effect. These are lighters which
have presumably been confiscated at security. Seems better than chucking them
given that many people in China smoke.

(The stats are really staggering: 60% of men, 7-10% of government revenue, 1
million deaths attributable per year.)

~~~
mcguire
The Texas state government has a store in Austin (there may be others in other
cities) where you can wander in and buy used office equipment and such (I got
a sweet filing cabinet) and lots and lots of pocket knives. Including,
occasionally, collectible ones worth some amount of money.

That's where they go when they're confiscated at the airport.

~~~
therein
They should have these kind of stores at all major airports. It would be a
huge attraction and I would look forward to going and seeing if there are any
nice gems in the confiscated items.

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telesilla
I'm on a plane at least once a month these days, and I have never lost a bag
in all my 20 years of international travel. Am I just lucky?

~~~
astura
TFA says airlines are mostly really good at getting bags to their owner - only
.01% of bags become unclaimed.

It's been an embarrassingly long time since my undergraduate statistics class,
so the math might not be 100% correct, but I'd like to attempt it anyway, be
sure to tell me if I'm wrong:

Worst case, you fly twice a month for 20 years, that's 480 flights. Each
flight is a round trip, so baggage is entered into the airlines systems 960
times in 20 years.

If the probability that an airline gets your baggage to you each time is
99.99%

.9999^960 = .9085

1-.9085 = .0915

So, if my calculations are correct, in 20 years time, there's a 9.15% of
chance your bags having be lost at least once. Assuming that the odds of an
airline losing all bags are the same - and they are obviously not.

~~~
ghaff
I suspect that the (vast?) majority of people who travel that much don't check
luggage regularly. The exception being people who need a lot of gear for
whatever purpose they're on the road for all the time. Personally, I'm on
dozens of flights a year and I only check luggage for a handful of those
flights.

Anecdotally, luggage does miss connections on a fairly regular basis and if
there are airline changes/international flights involved, it may take a few
days to track a bag down. But I've never had a bag lost permanently and I
can't remember the last time I've heard someone I know complaining about that
happening. I think my parents in all their years of travel may have lost a bag
permanently once.

ADDED: The statistic in the article doesn't really say what percentage of
luggage is lost though. The quote is “Less than one-half percent of bags are
ultimately unclaimed." So this is the case where they have the luggage but
can't figure out who the owner is for whatever reason. Presumably other bags
are just lost--probably most typically stolen.

~~~
astura
TFA was solely about luggage that was permanently lost, not temporarily.

I was answering the GP's question if they are just lucky or if they can expect
lost luggage with 20 years of regular travel. The answer is: the odds are
highly in your favor of not having an airline lose your bags, even after 20
years of regularly entrusting your bags to the airline.

------
0x9000
it is in their business interest to NOT find any personal information (since
then they would have to return the items), so I presume they just quickly
discard any papers or other things found in the bag, and reformats the laptops
without looking at them first. I mean, how likely is it that a laptop has NO
personal information on it?!

~~~
tbihl
Are you expecting them to boot from a flash drive and snoop through files?
That just doesn't seem a realistic expectation, nor even one I would want them
to be doing.

~~~
minikites
Would you consider paging through a paper notebook to be the same level of
effort and/or privacy concern?

I don't think paging through paper notebook is that far removed from going
into the user's (probably only one) documents folder and looking for something
like "hist301 final paper.doc" to find someone's name. If the paper notebook
starts to look like a personal diary, you stop, in the same way you don't
click on "company secrets.doc"

~~~
oarsinsync
Flipping through a paper note book takes seconds.

Given the timeframes, suspended laptops will have flat batteries. Timeframe is
now several minutes just to find the charger, plug in and power on.

One of these can occur simply by accident depending on how you pick it up. The
other requires wilful actions.

Levels of effort / concern for privacy are exponentially different.

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jacquesm
I only take handluggage. That's ever since my checked in suitcase ended up in
Kuala Lumpur instead of in Toronto.

Since then all my luggage is what I can carry on. Besides being substantially
faster on the far side it really forces me to think about what I will take
with me and whether I really need it.

Switching to a Macbook Air running Linux made this a lot easier (before that
it was a Lenovo Battle Axe).

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mcguire
" _...at this family-owned store than takes up an entire city block._ "

"City" is perhaps overly generous for Scottsboro. I honestly have no idea why
this business is out in the middle of nowhere, but I'm happy that it is.
There's not a whole lot else going on here. (Although I understand they've
actually broken ground on Google's data center.)

~~~
gbacon
North Alabama represent!

