Do Airlines intentionally leave baggage behind in some situations?

Everyone assumes that when their piece of luggage doesn’t make it to the destination that there has been some sort of foul-up.

I was on a flight yesterday and upon landing my golf clubs were missing. I checked with baggage services and was told that they were still in the departure city and would be sent on a subsequent flight and delivered to me.

There were several other passengers in the same situation… all of us had over-sized baggage not make it. The flight was on a 90 seat regional jet and seemed to be mostly vacationers (not business travelers) so it seemed that everyone was carrying the max for checked bags and carry-on. As well, the pilot informed us that we would be flying into strong head-winds… sure enough the flight was 30 minutes longer than scheduled.

So, if the plane was over-loaded, would the airline just arbitrarily not send some baggage? I thought for security reasons bags and passengers had to be on the plane together. Would it have to be shipped by freight, or could they send it by another commercial flight?

On a few occasions my bag has been left behind, usually because of tight scheduling and the arriving flight being late. There’s just not time to transfer all of the bags, so they leave it behind for the next flight. (Which is a pisser if you’ve caught the last flight of the day had checked your sleeping bag and toiletries.)

For security reasons, they just need to know that you are willing to be on the same flight as your bag. If they remove a few bags at random/due to weight or size, that’s OK. If you check something, but then decide “Nah, not going to get on that plane,” that’s when security would be suspicious.

Personally I don’t doubt they leave a few bags off in a case like you mention. I can’t think of a better alternative, unless they compensated a few people to get off with their bags, but that would create a delay and they might get no takers.

Former airline pilot …

It is common for baggage to be left behind on small regional jets. It occurs rarely for larger (say 737 or bigger) aircraft.

Any airplane has to be able to hold both the weight and volume of what you want to put into it. The weight includes the people, their baggage, and the fuel needed to get there, plus if the weather is lousy, fuel to hold and/or fly elsewhere to find landable weather.

No commercial aircraft are designed so you can simply fill the seats, AND fill the cargo holds AND fill the fuel tanks. That would be too much total weight even for cargo / baggage of typical density. There is always a tradeoff between the three. Unless you are trying to carry a lot of fuel, i.e. trying to fly close to the aircraft’s maximum range, the tradeoff covered by the fuel you don’t need. e.g. fill the seats, fill the holds, carry 1/2 a load of fuel & get there fine.

The RJs as a group are really stretching their design to accomodate more people & more range within a limited weight capacity structure. So they often get into a weight crunch where something must be left behind.

Airlines will generally not schedule a situation that requires limiting baggage per person (or headcount), but they can get into that situation when lousy weather at the destination requires a bunch of extra fuel. That extra weight will eat all the slack weight capacity and then some, forcing a reduction in either baggage or passengers or both.
As to volume, the RJs have less cargo volume per passenger seat as well. As long as most folks are checking (or dropping off planeside) just one bag it works OK. If everybody brings golf clubs too, that aint’ all gonna fit even if the weights somehow worked out. Beware traveling by RJ to a tournament or to a convention in a small town. Getting yuor golf clubs a day late can be a nuisance; getting the stuff to set up & operate your convention booth a day late can be disastrous.

Rule of thumb is to NEVER check anything you could not do without for 24 hours at minimum.

I learned that lesson the first time. Nowadays I pack my clothes in one bag, and my toiletries and a change of socks and underwear in a small backpack. Except for the last time I flew. Since shampoo is considered an explosive or exlposive component and I didn’t have a 3oz container I had to check my toilet bag. And wouldn’t you know it… :rolleyes:

I haven’t needed my sleeping bag recently, but when I did – and passengers were allowed two carry-ons – I carried it with me. Seriously, I’m trying to figure out how to afford my own airplane. (I have a car and a boat I don’t need, plus a lot of excess camera and filmmaking equipment. That’s a start.) It should take about 12 hours or so to get from NoWA to SoCal (a long day in the saddle, to be sure!) instead of six or eight hours for two flights, layover and security; not being IFR rated there would be weather concerns; and it would be a lot more expensive. But I’m getting that fed up with flying commercially. No security checkpoints, no getting to the airport until I’m ready to, no layovers, and I could carry what the hell I want and not worry about it not arriving with me.

And never, ever check medication. I don’t fly alot, but I was a fan of Airline and it amazed me the number of people who’d put medicine that they just had to have in their checked bags.