Unless you were cryogenically frozen for the past few decades you’ve probably heard stories of airlines losing luggage. It happens all the time, in fact by a quick google search the only statistic I could find was from 2007 that said, "One in every 138 checked bags went missing during the first nine months of this year." The airlines say that this number is really not that bad, because over 99% of the luggage gets to its destination. If you look at the numbers then it doesn’t seem so bad, but I want to visualize this a little differently. Let’s take one of the most popular commercial flight planes out there, the Boeing 737. Depending on the model of the plane, it can hold anywhere from 128 to 215 passengers. Let’s guess that on average 1 bag is checked per person. That means the airlines lose about 1 bag per flight. To me that doesn't seem cool.
By this statistic my family must be very lucky with our luggage this year, in the past 4 months we’ve had 2 bags lost out of the 4 flights people in my family took. We’re either really lucky or maybe those lost baggage numbers are higher than the numbers I’ve found. One of the things that was lost was a stroller that was checked at the gate of the plane. How does a stroller not get on the plane when you walk it all the way up to the plane itself? What's wrong with these airlines?
Anyways, I just recently found a site (www.isthisyourluggage.com) where the owner of the site collects lost luggage, photographs the contents and tries to find the owner. This is what the site says about how they get the luggage:
"When a bag gets lost the airport or airline will store it for a while and try to find the owner. If they can’t identify the owner of the case they send it to be auctioned off with the profit going to charity. I go to these auctions and buy the cases so I can photograph them for my weird voyeuristic passion. The reason for the web site? I would really like to try to find the people who own my suitcases, so if you have any friends who have lost a case people get them to have a look."
Interesting, neat, possibly creepy, but cool.