I travel frequently both internationally and within the US. Baggage going astray doesn’t happen frequently, but it does happen. However, I have never lost a piece permanently. Normally it turns up on the next flight, and the airline delivers it to my house or hotel.
It’s most likely to happen with tight connections, or when I’ve had to change my original flight due to missing a connection. If you’re worried about it, make sure you have at least an hour and a half (in my experience) to make the connecting flight; longer if you think not having your luggage for one day would be a major disaster. Carry a change of clothes in your carry-on, plus any essential medications, toothbrush, etc.
I go one step further - I keep a supply long enough for my trip in my carry-ons, and the rest in my checked bags. Carry-ons can get lost (or stolen, especially if you have a seat in the back of the plane and the only room for the bag is in the front) too.
I lost a bag once, when my international flight was canceled and I had to switch airlines. I reported it when I arrived and it was delivered to my door the very next morning( the bag had caught a later flight on the original airline, but there were no seats available).
I used to worry about this. Then I missed a flight out of NYC going to Budapest. My bag had checked thru from Phx. So I was rerouted to Frankfurt. Then a second airline refused my first airline’s voucher in Frankfurt. So I took a 3rd airline to Budapest.
[In 2012, there were 8.83 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers
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Remember how the math of statistics works:
It’s a good tool for measuring large numbers of instances , butdoes not tell you anything about one specific instance. Toss a coin 1000 times, you’ll get , in total, 500 heads, and 500 tails. But that is useless for predicting if any one specific toss will be heads or tails.
When you’re travelling you don’t give a damn about a thousand checked bags --you only care about one specific case.
I’ve flown about once a year for the past 20 years, with 2 identical checked bags–one for me, one for the spouse.We always check in together and watch to make sure that both suitcases get placed on the converyor belt side-by-side as they disappear into the void. They never re-appear out of the void side-by-side.
So that’s about 20 trips, with both an international leg and a connecting flight within the USA. Which means 40 airplanes, and therefore 80 opportunities for one of our 2 suitcases to get lost.
We have had at least 5 or 6 suitcases which got lost.
The airlines are very,very good about finding them, and then delivering them to the door a day or two later. But it takes a full day mininum, and often 2 days.
I have had bags delayed about three times. Once it had obviously fallen off the luggage carrier and was badly scuffed. Just last year, none of my bags (there were three) made the connection and were delivered the next day. The third a few years ago didn’t even involve a connection. There were two Air Canada flights, one to Toronto, one to Montreal, leaving about the same time from Barbados. To complicate things, the previous day’s flight to Toronto had been canceled (snowfall) and the computer in Barbados was down. So the Air Canada counter was a madhouse and everything was being done by hand. Anyway, our bags went to Toronto and weren’t delivered for at least three days. But we were home.
Anyway, it seems like there is nearly one chance in 100 of having your bags delayed.
This happens to me all the time. Now, as habit, I will cruise by the area (usually near the luggage office) where they stash the unclaimed bags before heading to the bag pickup belt.
It usually happens when a flight has been delayed but not always, sometimes there will be an earlier connecting flight that was booked at the time I reserved, but my bag may get on that flight.
And I’ve never had a bag delayed because of a connecting flight issue. The one time I had a bag delayed the flight was non-stop, and when they called the destination airport the bag was still there, sitting in a corner…they had just missed it when they were loading, whoops.
In over 40 years of flying, I’ve only had bags not show up 3 times. Once was going home from Paris, once was when I made a very last minute change because of a cancelled flight, and only one was random.
My daughter was stuck in the Heathrow disaster a few years back, was delayed several days without her bag, and when she finally got home, it arrived with her, which was a damn miracle.
I keep my pills which I really need in my computer bag which stays at my feet. Carry-ons sometimes get checked - I don’t want to take the chance.
Like others have said: segregate the baggage – high-valuables and must-have essentials in carry-on, things that can be reasonably replaced onsite or that can wait a day (or two), checked.
Connections do have an issue, my experiences with wandering luggage since I started flying more or less regularly have been in connecting flights, though all three times it ended up where it should have been: One (1) bag that went to Seattle instead of SLC in 1991; someone in my party got their bags delayed to the next day Guatemala-SJU connecting at PTY in 2000; and one case like **MikeS **in which my bag seems to have arrived at Burlington before I did due to multiple delays and reroutes, in 2009.