Travelling to NYC from Arkansas to a wedding. I usually do carry-on only, but have to check some baggage. Wife is worried we’ll lose suitcases on a connecting flight. What’s the doper take on this?
Unlikely you’ll lose anything.
Personally, I prefer to check, so I don’t have to drag luggage around the connecting airport. Never had a problem with a loss.
“In 2012, there were 8.83 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers, a 44.5% drop over the last six years.” From here.
I’ve had bags go atray three times in the last ten years. The airlines are very good at locating the stray bags and getting them to you the next day. When I check a bag, I keep a change of underwear and my medications in my carry-on, just in case.
^^^ also, you could mail clothes ahead for cheap.
Thought about doing UPS for the bulky stuff, but my peruke and jodhpurs are irreplaceable.
I don’t fly all that often (2-3 times per year), but I almost always have a connection, and I always check baggage. I’ve never permanently lost a piece, although once back in 1984 one bag didn’t show up at the airport and ended up being delivered to me the following day. Don’t put anything that would be too painful to lose in your checked baggage and you should be fine.
Of course you should carry on the irreplaceable stuff, along with a change of clothes or two and prescription meds. And while sending stuff ahead by UPS or Fedex sounds like a great idea, it’s going to cost money, while checking bags might be free.
As people have said, check most of it, but if you have any prescription drugs, they have to go in the carry-on. It’s probably safe to put them in the checked bags, but I’m extra neurotic about my pills. It’d be a pain to replace them wherever you’re going, anyway.
Since you’re flying domestically it probably doesn’t matter, but be careful if you’re flying internationally with checked baggage. For example, I have flown Canada->US with a layover at another Canadian airport. I had to get off the domestic Canadian flight, leave the secured area, pick up my bags, then re-enter airport security at the US wing, pass Canadian airport security there, and then pass US customs/immigration preclearance, then board a flight to the US. Surprisingly enough, US preclearance was the quickest and most painless part of the entire process. Of course, after the entire ordeal, you get to walk out of the plane in the US and pick up your bags without any further interactions with government officials.
I used to fly often for business, usually Canada to the US. Never once in my 6 years or so of frequent travel did any of my checked luggage get misplaced.
I also have never had a big problem with lost luggage. Most (90%+) of the time it arrives with me, but a few times it has arrived later and is delivered to me by the next morning.
I understand that this is something that greatly improved post 9/11. The airlines have to ensure that you can’t engineer a situation where your bag is on a plane that you are not on (and therefore be able to bomb a plane without bombing yourself). The easiest way to do this is by ensuring your bag always travels with you.
I used to fly a lot, but don’t anymore. The only times I had luggage problems were when the connecting time was short, sometimes because the first flight arrived late. When I had to run to catch the connecting flight, the chances of luggage lagging behind were greater.
And if I used the last flight out of a city for the day, the chances of getting lost luggage recovered soon were poor. If several flights with the same destination left a few minutes or hours apart, I tried to take the early ones. If my luggage missed my flight, it would probably be on the following one. (Sometimes I was even told it wouldn’t be on my flight, but on the one leaving 10 minutes later.) Otherwise, I might have to wait a day for it to catch up.
So the moral of the story, if you are worried about this, is…don’t arrive at the airport too late, or your bags may lag, and try to schedule connecting flights early, but with plenty of time for the connection.
Not likely to not make it. If it is well labeled it should come in on the next flight should it miss your connection. Since you are in headed for a destination proximate to to the airport, it will get delivered promptly to wherever you are going. Make a prompt report at the baggage counter and be able to accurately describe your bag.
The only times I have lost luggage on connecting flights, the connections have been very tight - under an hour. (Also both through airports that have a reputation for eating luggage.) With normal connection times, I don’t even worry about it any more.
Same here. If the first plane is late and I barely make the second, it’s likely the bag didn’t make it and I’ll get it delivered the next day.
The last time I flew with a connecting flight, my luggage arrived at the airport a couple hours before I did. (The first flight on my original itinerary was delayed, so the airline rebooked me with a later itinerary but neglected to reroute my luggage. But the second flight on my original itinerary was also delayed, and so my luggage made it to my destination on those flights.)
I usually check my bags. Only once have they been misplaced.
It was annoying, but Southwest reimburses you for expenses up to $50, and they got the bag to me the next day.
With bar coding, it’s harder to lose a bag permanently; with the claim check they can quickly look up where the bag is (think UPS online tracking). The problem is usually in the transfer; my lost bag was when I passed through BWI, where the two flights were in different wings of the airport. It was put on the next flight and delivered.
It also happened to me about 30 years ago, but they were at out hotel the next morning (no reimbursement).
Since the OP is looking for advice, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
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