They say there are only two kinds of checked luggage: carry on and lost. But that’s not true. The third kind is damaged. The two most common airline complaints with photos on social media are passengers being required to gate check carry on bags when their plane’s overhead bins are actually empty, and scuffed or damaged checked bags.
Bags aren’t handled gingerly. They’re tossed around by baggage handlers, and they get damaged inside the airport’s luggage handling system that moves bags from the check-in counter out to the ramp, and from planes inside to baggage claim.
Luggage isn’t ever going to remain pristine. The purpose of a bag is to protect its contents. So it’s striking what happened to the contents of an American Airline passenger’s bag – when their bag apparently got run over by a baggage truck:
my luggage got ran over. has this happened to anyone else?
by u/ruffragette in americanairlines
The passenger had been forced to gate check their bag. At baggage claim they found that the bag had been destroyed – along with its contents – and all of the clothing inside was “filthy.” The passenger reported, “they gave me a new carry-on, but like… what the heck was i supposed to put in it??”
A maintenance worker for another airline shared in response to the photos,
One night, raining heavily – with that stupid asphalt/concrete mix that seems to turn into a black hole yet make every light super glaring into my eyes – just driving as usual with a colleague to one of our overnight aircraft in our work truck. I swear there’s a wierd [sic] noise coming out of the front end.
“Nah it’s just piece of s*** work truck” my colleague says.
I go about another hundred feet and I stop the truck. It’s something wierd. Sure enough – standard black generic bag like every other piece of luggage is wedged basically under the front of the truck.
…I collect the bag and go and sheepishly drop it off at baggage services. There’s enough of a tag remaining to identify its owner. These black bags impossible to see on these rainy nights. Just an accident. Falls off a cart. Gets collected in another vehicle.
It’s more common than you’d think. A Delta passenger reported something similar this week, too:
The way delta/airfrance returned my checked baggage. Everything is missing.
by u/Time_Wall1561 in delta
When I picked up a ripped apart checked bag from Alaska Airlines in Seattle once, they told me I could either (1) take a new (cheap) carry on from the baggage office, or (2) file a claim to have my bag replaced. Since I was in the middle of a trip and needed a bag for everything that was inside, and didn’t have time to go shopping, I opted to take them up on the new bag. They didn’t make me sign any sort of waiver in exchange for the bag, so I pursued a claim anyway. Fortunately my bag’s contents were fine.
OMG, every airlines has this happen from time to time. I have over 1,000,000 miles and have had one bag damaged in 40 plus years. . .it happens.
@SunViking82 – so close, but you missed the point.
It aeems that AA now by default announces that its full flight and all bins are full, EVEN WITHOUT CHECKING IF THERE IS BIN SPACE OR NOT.
So frustrating to be told you MUST check your carry-on… and then there are bins a plenty.
AA sees this as a value-add for their mid-level credit cards. Group 5 boarding avoids the mandatory call for those in groups 6 and up to gate check their carry ons….
There is a third kind of luggage: next-day, in perfect condition, by UPS/FedEx. Shipped night before outbound flight(s), and morning of inbound (return) flight(s). Expensive? Yes, relatively, but has provided me almost 40 years of fast worry-free damage-free theft-free flight luggage delivery.
@Gary – You still haven’t responded to my question about whether you have personally had lost – not mishandled or delayed – luggage. In my several decades of travel I’ve never had a lost bag. Are you saying that that’s some sort of insane statistical anomaly?
They need to substantially increase airline liability for damaged/lost bags including adding a statutory cost on top of the value. The only way to control it is to make the current carelessness more expensive than doing it right.
My takeaway from this is that if you have a black, grey, dark blue bag…or any other color that might be hard for ground crew to see…you might want to consider putting reflective stripes on your bag. I’m tempted to do it myself after reading this.
It might not completely prevent something like this from happening, but it’s a cheap way to reduce the risk.
Quick research shows that peel and stick reflective stripes cost between $6 and $8 each in the U.S. Not exactly expensive for anyone who can afford to fly semi regularly.
Not saying airlines shouldn’t be more careful, but I can see not seeing a black bag at night and some of the shades of gray and blue I’ve seen would be even worse.
Another reason I pretty much quit flying AA.
I fly FC, usually the 2nd row and on almost every damn regional flight get told I have to gate check my legal size carry on.
It’s bull. Nobody should be filling up Row 2 FC luggage space. If it’s because you have cheap crappy planes without decent size overheads, that’s YOUR problem, not mine.
Never been asked by Delta. Never been asked by some of the tiny regional airlines I’ve flown in various 3rd world countries. ONLY AA.
Now if I’m forced to fly them, won’t fly anything of a regional.size.
Sorry but according to American Baggage handling executives in charge of bags that may have gone astray or decided to leave their owners without notice………
“This is simply normal wear and tear of a bag”. So sorry this is not cover-able
We are not happy @ American until you aren’t
Have a nice day and thank you for flying AA!
This seems to be an American Airlines problem. I have rarely been asked to check my carry-on bag. The only airline that has asked some of the time has been EVA. I carry a lightweight nylon bag to take out anything I need on the airplane (lithium ion battery products, medicines, etc.) and give them the almost empty bag. It usually comes out fine although sometimes worn or stained.
As one who travels both domestically and internationally quite a bit, I can say that the “bag beg” and “bag grab” happen way more often in the U.S. than in other places I’ve been traveling to. There are planes that legitimately have little space in the overhead bins, but even when there is ample space they’re coming after the carry ons way too fast. I may have told the story before about this summer when AA tried to force me to gate check a bag when we were already running late and my connection at DFW was extremely tight to start with. I had the identical bag along that I had put overhead in the exact same aircraft type many times, yet they insisted it wouldn’t fit. I said, “Can I try? I’m going to miss my connection for sure if you make me wait for the bag.” The GA said, “I don’t care, and they’ll grab it whether or not I put a tag on it.” I walked past the guy grabbing bags when his back was turned, and the bag fit easily, as I knew it would. At DFW I ran and barely made my connection as boarding was about done. She was right about one thing. They don’t care.
Wow that is a lot of personal products and liquids.
Sometimes the FA is right.
I’ve had one tell me my computer backpack wasn’t going to fit under the seat. I was sure it was, that’s where it normally rode. Oops, that plane had done something different with the seat supports, they didn’t neatly divide the space into three equal parts like they should. The computer ended up riding in the overhead.
They’ve brought it upon themselves, though, with charging for the first checked bag so people bring on board lots of things that wouldn’t be a problem to check.
hey! this is my luggage! to respond to some of this comments: my carry-on suitcase was red, so it should have been more visible than a darker colored bag; yes, it was a lot of products and liquids because i have sensitive skin that requires different products depending on its condition that day and i had about five different types of eyeshadow palettes because i am indecisive; and i was in boarding group 5, which is why i was surprised i ended up having to check the only bag i had brought with me. additionally, my first flight was delayed an hour, and my second flight was delayed about five times before ultimately being cancelled, leaving me to chill in the DFW airport for about 8 hours overnight until my new flight boarded. all in all, it was a horrible trip.
I was in LAX Flagship past Sunday morning seating next to the window and witnessed a carry-on got stuck under a wheel of AA luggage cart. The worker kept driving for anther 20 ft while the bag was dragged over tarmac under the wheel. Unfortunately, I did not film that but I imagine that the plastic shell bag got quite a few scratches.
In lieu of hyperbole, here’s some actual data… 996 of every 1,000 checked bags in the US in 2022 are delivered on time. 4 of every 1,000 are some combination of delayed, damaged, lost, pilfered etc…
https://www.bts.gov/content/mishandled-baggage-reports-filed-passengers-largest-us-air-carriersa
@Joe, you are reading the report you cite wrong. As far as I can tell, 6.4 out of every 1000 bags enplaned were mishandled in 2022. The numbers per passenger include passengers with no bags as well as one, two, etc.
Accidents happen. As long as the person that caused the accident (in this case, the tug driver?) gets held liable and reimburses the cost of the equipment they damaged, it should be ok.
@Sncy: When a tug driver bumps into an aircraft, is the driver responsible for reimbursing the airline for aircraft damage repair?
I was coming home from a business trip to London — changing in planes at LAX, looking out the window of my SFO bound plane when I saw a garment bag fall off the overloaded baggage carrier onto the rainy tarmac. I had the worst feeling that it was my bag although it seemed as if half of the road warriors carried those beige Hartmann garment bags at the time. I continued to watch as an airport employee spotted the bag and was heading to retrieve it. But he was delayed by an Air France plane coming into the terminal and rolling right over the bag. Later at SFO, I waited with trepidation for my bag so I could clear customs. Out it came, wet with a black tire track across it. Customs had never seen anything like it! I went to baggage services because I had no idea what I would find when I unpacked. The airline offered to pay to have it cleaned, but they would not replace it because it was “not damaged.” Fortunately and surprisingly, nothing inside was damaged because I wrapped and hung everything in plastic dry cleaning bags so everything was fine. The best luggage repair company in San Francisco tried everything they could think of, but that tire track was a permanent design on my otherwise pristine bag.