Thanks to new baggage tracking technologies, suitcases are now lost less often
After a flight, having breathed repeatedly recirculated air and eaten hastily reheated on-board food, our body sometimes slows down metabolism to the snail's pace of the baggage carousel. It's no wonder that passengers who have disembarked want to get home or to the hotel as quickly as possible. But sometimes the conveyor belt just doesn't want to give tired travelers their luggage. Some suitcases disappear without a trace.
Considering the enormous volumes of baggage that pass through the world's airports, an average result of seven lost suitcases per thousand transported seems quite good. But orphaned bags gradually accumulate, and they need to be disposed of somehow.
In Britain, they are sold at auctions. When a suitcase is sold, the auction house keeps a commission, and the remaining proceeds are transferred to the airline's account. Four British auction houses handle this.
One of them is Greasby's in the Tooting area of southwest London. Once every two weeks on Tuesdays, about 150 people pay a £100 deposit for a laminated card with a number, giving them the right to participate in the auction. Against the wall in a small room lie 20 suitcases and bags. Some are new, some are quite battered. These are the ones that will be auctioned.
On a recent Tuesday, next to the luggage were stacked umbrellas, walkers, children's scooters, and even diapers – small items not claimed by their owners, left at pre-flight screenings or simply forgotten in waiting areas. 'What people don't bring back from vacation!' auctioneer Christine Sachet, who has been wielding the gavel here for over forty years, tells the assembled buyers.
When a passenger loses luggage, the World Tracer system, used by all major airlines, comes into play. The system tries to find the lost item by comparing baggage tag numbers, color, and brand with data stored in a giant database. Usually, the owner and the suitcase find each other. But sometimes (more precisely, in one case out of 3,000) the owner cannot be found.
'Airlines actively search for baggage owners for up to 100 days. After that, the baggage is considered lost,' says Nick Gates, director of SITA, a company providing information and telecommunications systems for the air transport industry. 'By this point, the airline's options are exhausted. Sometimes this happens because the suitcase has no tag or any other indication of the owner,' he notes. 'The further fate of the baggage varies from country to country. In some countries, it is destroyed. In the UK, airlines usually send it to auction.'
At the Greasby's auction, the first hour is fairly calm – other goods are sold cheaply, including stolen items obtained by the police, property of bankrupt companies, and simply items no longer needed by their former owners. The attendees perk up when lost luggage goes on the block. The starting price is usually around £10, and to the accompaniment of the auctioneer's rapid-fire patter, it quickly rises, by two or five pounds at a time.
Many lots are sold in less than half a minute. You can't afford to blink. Additionally, you have to choose blindly: buyers can inspect the closed luggage before the auction, but they are not allowed to look inside.
Despite the frenzy, buyers' chances of picking up Swiss watches cheaply are quite slim. Representatives of the auction house say that all valuable items (jewelry or electronics) are removed from the suitcases and sold separately at the same auction. Designer clothing and shoes, however, remain in the luggage. That doesn't mean the game isn't worth the candle. According to those present, you can make a good profit by reselling a suitcase of ordinary clothes. Preferably, of course, you'd get luggage lost on the way from home. But a suitcase from a return flight is also acceptable – after all, washing machines were invented for a reason.
Filmmaker Mely Icon-Alonzi from the Acton Town area of London has been to such auctions four times and bought two suitcases, one for £18 and another for £30 (plus an 18% auction fee and 20% VAT). She says she buys them for films or for costume designer friends. But the high quality of the contents is certainly not guaranteed. 'From my previous experience, you can get a suitcase of cheap towels that even charities won't take,' she says. 'You can't see the contents beforehand, so it's a matter of luck.'
Seventeen-year-old Nicole Moss from Tooting, who is at such an auction for the first time, was lucky today – she got a Chanel dress and shoes. 'I don't understand why people leave such good things,' she remarks.
Lost luggage can also end up at the auctions of Bristol Commercial Valuers and Auctioneers. According to assistant director Sam Ewing, a different procedure is followed there. First, at this auction, buyers are allowed to inspect the luggage. Second, he says, 'everything is carefully sorted, we select and distribute into suitable lots.'
Before the suitcases, items confiscated or forgotten at pre-flight screenings go under the hammer – smartphones, belts, watches, expensive champagne, whiskey, vodka, and cartons of cigarettes with health warnings in different languages, indicating the country of origin and where the unlucky former owner went on vacation. Among the jewelry on offer is a worn men's wedding ring – perhaps it was forgotten in a hurry to catch a flight and never found.
Alex Fennel from Bristol spent 750 pounds here on suitcases, but he hopes to resell their contents online within a month for two or even three times as much. "For me, this is business. The thrill is that you get the chance to rummage through things and might even find a hidden treasure," he says. "And sometimes you get dirty laundry."
Despite buyer enthusiasm, the days of these auctions may be numbered. Thanks to new luggage tracking technologies, suitcases are now lost half as often as eight years ago. But if you fly a lot, over time your favorite bag could well end up at such an auction.
There is, however, one foolproof way to avoid this: only fly to the city of Osaka in Japan. At the Kansai International Airport there, not a single suitcase has been lost since its opening in 1994.