Industry moves to handle baggage problem

Statistics from the Association of European Airlines (AEA) and SITA's WorldTracer system, which traces lost and mishandled passenger baggage from around 400 airlines and ground-handling companies, reveal that the number of bags mishandled in Europe for 2008 totalled 14.28 bags per thousand passengers worldwide, compared to 18.86 per thousand in 2007. Figures from the US Department of Transportation and WorldTracer show 5.26 bags mishandled per thousand passengers in the same year, which was a 25.4 per cent reduction in comparison with 2007.

Globally, according to SITA's 2009 annual baggage report, the total number of bags mishandled in 2008 dropped from 42.4 million to 32.8 million. Although this is a 20 per cent reduction in comparison to the previous year, mishandled baggage still costs the aviation industry billions of dollars per year.

Nick Gates, product portfolio director at SITA, tells Jane's that the reasons for the fall in lost or mishandled baggage "are hard to categorise definitively, but we have gathered evidence that tells us there are several factors involved".