What prevents people from taking somebody else's luggage off airport carousels?

In an airport, what stops thieves from taking other people’s bags off the carousel and leaving with them? And if your luggage is stolen in that fashion, will the airline be responsible or are you SOL?

It just seems very insecure to me… is it actually?

I believe that techically you’re supposed to retain the other half of the barcore they put onto your luggage - that way they can confirm if you checked it in.

I’ve never seen it checked though.

It’s kind-of insecure. Except that airports are usually CCTV’ed to death, and you don’t know who among the large crowd of carousel-hangers the luggage actually belongs to, so you’re open to be challenged at any time. Maybe that case belongs to the 7 ft guy right behind you who’s in a really grouchy mood after being cramped in a plane for six hours…

In a lot of airports, you can’t actually access the carousels unless you’ve flown in or bought a ticket and cleared security. This is certainly true of international flights to give customs the opportunity to make you open your bags. In which case they can correlate CCTV footage of any theft with the thief’s check-in, ticket-purchase details, possibly credit card details etc. This isn’t universal though - in Aberdeen for example you can wander right up to the internal flights carousel (there’s only one!) from the street, no ticket required.

Dopers need to get out of my head. I am flying in a few hours, and was idly thinking in the shower “What should I tie on my luggage handles so that I can identify it? And how is it no one just walks off with my luggage? And if they did, would that fall under the lost luggage policy?”

Lack of sufficient upper body strength?

Oh wait. That’s just how my wife and I pack.

I’m betting that random luggage at an airport carousel just isn’t the hot item some people may think it is. Supply and demand in the thieving world probably keep you luggage safe as much as anything else.

Random airport luggage – where the thief is stealing “blind” – would be fairly risky to attain, and would almost certainly have little of any value (to the thief).

Because I has already been picked over by the organized thieves working as baggage handlers?

I have fluorescent green luggage tags zip tied to my bags.

Responding to the OP, by making your bags stand out from the pack, they are less likely to be stolen (or swapped by mistake). Even if there is a thief attempting to steal a bag, ze’ll likely go for one that looks like all the rest, so that the real owner can’t tell what is going on.

Standing at the carousel watching dozens of identical black bags go past, mine stand out from across the room. If someone tried to swipe one, I’d notice before they took two steps.

Because the cab fare to and from the airport is seventeen times more than the pickings from an average suitcase?

Nobody wants your clothes.

I mark mine with a big “X” in ble painter’s tape. My wife tends to buy the ugliest floral pattern she can find. Both stratagies work well when you’re in an airport with a tired child, who just wants to get home.

I just went to Target and found these hideous hair elastics for little girls with long gossamer scarves hanging from them - 2 bucks for 2. Figured that would work for me.

I used to be a Security Guard for A********** Security, at Orlando International.

I got canned for trying to do my job.
The first day at Baggage Claim.
Nobody wants it done. Lawsuit risk from grabbing the wrong guy is too high; for loss of goods, the risk is low.

Security stinks there, & at every airport.

And the CCTV ain’t worth diddly against theives. The guys who man it are just farting around.

The only place where they’re serious is Boarding. The Metal Detectors, the X-rays.

You can, and people do, steal at will at the Airport. :rolleyes:

There isn’t any need to put your luggage at risk. I’ve never been beaten to the carousel by the luggage. If you go directly from the gate to the claim area, you should be there before the first bag slides into view. Since so many passengers do this, a thief would be nuts to try to lift a bag. Now if you fart around long enough so that your lonely bag is waiting on the carousel for any period of time, it might be too tempting a target.

That works okay for domestic flights, but on international flights, those Passport Control lines can be looooong. (And I seem to have an uncanny knack for picking the shortest-line-yet-longest-wait booth every. single. time.

Am I assuming incorrectly when I assume that this is mostly numerically isolated kleptos and pranksters? Seems difficult to make a living stealing airport luggage.

The OP did not specify professional thieves. Kleptos and pranksters qualify as thieves too. :slight_smile: But I have no idea whether your assumption is correct or not.

Sometimes.
Other times, it’s kids too dumb to work things out.
Of course, darn fools can & do put camera cases or guitar cases in cargo, too, & that can be something that gets grabbed.
But a common dodge is for a guy to get on the plane with one cheap suitcase, & leave with a nice set of luggage & a cheap suitcase. He might even keep some stuff inside.

Wow, I didn’t think of that. I’ve been wanting some new luggage. For some reason, this reminds of a Dunesbury back during Gulf War I. No one was allowed to bring back spoils, so the MP’s were searching one of the guy’s tanks. AFter the MP’s let him go, he’s all proud that he got through with his spoil – an Iraqi tank.

Perfect segue into how I mark my luggage: I always spray-paint the allied chevron onto our luggage for quick and easy identification.

So this suggests that old cheap suitcases are best. Not going to be stolen for the suitcase, and thieves might guess that if the suitcase is cheap the contents will also be cheap.