The Department of Transportation’s end of September Air Travel Consume Report is out with airline performance data from July.
Month after month, American Airlines loses more checked bags than any other airline. They don’t just lose more bags in total, they also lose more bags as a percentage of those that are checked with them than any other airline.
What’s striking to me though is that American loses nearly one bag for every flight that they operate.
- According to data from aviation analytics company Cirium, American operated 108,609 flights in July.
- According to DOT data, American lost 78,757 bags in July.
- In other words, they lost 73% as many bags as they had flights.
To be sure, there are plenty of flights where American loses many bags and also flights where no bags are lost. It’s not exactly correct to say any given flight has a 73% chance of losing a bag (or that flying American gives you a 73% chance of losing a bag – they lose 1.18% of checked bags in July). Nonetheless that’s an amazing figure.
Also at the bottom of the pack with American Airlines are PSA (American Airlines regional carrier) and Envoy Air (American Airlines regional carrier).
Delta doesn’t normally lose many bags but their CrowdStrike meltdown caused them to in July. American still lost more bags than Delta did during the meltdown. Meanwhile, Southwest Arilines checks by far more bags than anyone else because they don’t charge for two checked bags per passenger – and they do a pretty good job getting those bags to their destination.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, considering how poorly JetBlue handles on-time operations it’s surprising how well they deliver bags. It is not a surprise that Allegiant does this well – they really aren’t connecting passengers, and don’t have a big operation to keep sorted with numerous flights at the same time at hubs.
By the way, American Airlines also does among the worst jobs keeping track of wheelchairs, too. Spirit, and their own regional carrier PSA, did worse in July however.
Two years ago I reported on comments by American’s Chief Operating Officer David Seymour in which told employees that it doesn’t make sense to upgrade baggage tracking technology until their airline partners have done so first.
CEO Robert Isom has said that some of their hubs have such backwards technology that upgrading how they track bags is too big of a challenge to undertake.
The title of this post is thoroughly incorrect as noted in the post itself. There are plenty of ways in which AA sucks complete and total ass. There is no need to revert to inaccurate statements.
I’m not sure I’ve read a more awkwardly written headline.
As a former airline professional, there is a major difference between “lost” and “delayed.” Please write responsibly. People are listening. While the jist of the article is that AA mishandles bags, they are not LOSING the majority of these bags. I’ve been on the side of “delayed” bags and it’s disappointing but they are rarely lost.
I’m still disappointed there isn’t more of a market for third-party baggage-delivery services.
Aside from technology, could part of American’s problem be its insistence that planes depart on time? It the airline accepting lost/delayed baggage resultings from last-minute check-ins or passengers from connecting flights to meet this standard?
I rarely check bags. This summer , I checked a bag in Delta on a flight that operates once a day. The flight was canceled and a new section was added about 21 hours later, using the same aircraft, which had been fixed overnight.
Quite a few dozen passengers had delayed bags, coming in on the next flight, 3 hours after the added section. Just bad planning to not put the bags on that extra section. Delta said they would deliver only if your house or hotel was within 50 miles. Otherwise, call Tim D.
I’d be interested in which stations have higher percentage of lost bags. Also, what’s the percentage of American to American versus Partner to American. While not lugging a carry on around is far easier it’s a hassle on irregular operations or if I end up in a tight connection. Just not worth the potential hassle.
I’m with the above commenters in that I think you should be accurate by saying mishandled bags. Less flashy that way but accuracy has its own beauty.
So classic clickbait headline that’s a lie and proven to be a lie by the content of the article.
VFTW is becoming less relevant it seems and has lowered itself to clickbait headlines.
sad.
We put trackers in our luggage now (we use Samsung however I heard Apple’s product is great as well). Flew from SFO-DOH and were able to track our luggage even in DOH. Can’t say how it will do in all countries however at least for US domestic flights, I believe it’s something worth investing in.
Shame on you Gary. You’re not contributing to the discussion with such a misleading headline. You could have just as easily and more accurately wrote…..98.8% of all AA bags make it to the destination on time.
You’re purposely deceiving your readers by taking the title of the DOT data (Mishandled) and deceptively replacing it with a more dramatic word (Lost). Have more respect for your readers.
I work in bag rooms every week, and the global baggage handling industry does a remarkably good job of delivering bags on time. In reality, most ‘mishandled’ bags are simply delayed, and make it on the next flight. Very few are lost.
Advice to your readers… Always attach the small, extra barcode to your bag—this provides an additional way to track your bag in case the larger tag falls off.
I’d like to know how many bags are lost when a customer is transferring versus a PTP routing. Feel like without that variable we can’t get a true sense of operational issues.
isom has no real operational experience. I explained to his Staff want was going on in 2022 ( 2 Operations Computer Programs and the management that does not understand it). I have seen 4 gate changes in less than 30 minutes that effected 1,200 passengers and bags.
How many bags are delayed because of lost Tags?
How many bags are delayed due to transfers between segments?
How many bags are delayed because the customer leaves the last flight bar code on the bag and the scanners are 100% confused.
Stupid headline and stupid stat. Yes, AA sucks sometimes but the stat that would mean something is the percentage of lost bags. 73k lost out of 7.3 million would be 1%… bad. 73k out of 730 million is. 01%… Good!
Earning that $31 million, Isom is!
It is interesting to see that Southwest enplaned almost twice as many bags as American in July 2024 but mishandled significantly fewer bags. For all of the talk about Southwest having outdated equipment, they must be doing something right.
American has so many city pairs that customers can switch flights on the drop of a hat. It’s almost impossible to keep the bag with the passenger. It will be at the final destination sometimes before, sometimes after their arrival. The important thing is not to lose the bag.
United basically tracks bags like FedEx and UPS track packages.
Bag Check Scan
Loaded on flight scan
Unloaded on flight
(scanned at transfer point and/or departing gate)
(scanned when loaded on connecting flight)
Another unloaded from flight
On way to baggage claim (last scan)
It’s amazing the investment in technology UA has done over the years.
For the past 4 years since coming out of the pandemic I have flown around 100 segments a year with AA and check a bag almost every time and have only had my bag misplaced once. This occurred because I changed destinations at a layover in Charlotte and my bag went to the original destination.
“United basically tracks bags like FedEx and UPS track packages.”
So does AA.