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Air Chaos: The Case of the Missing Luggage

Posted on Aug 14, 2023, Modified : Aug 11, 2023 jshell55

The Case of the Missing Luggage. Imagine you, standing in line at the airline lost baggage department, at midnight. Your bag is missing and you need answers. Why did this happen? I am writing this is because a couple of people in my circle have reported recent baggage chaos in the system.

To be perfectly honest, a lot of us have stories about airlines not doing their jobs right now, which is to successfully move people from place to place. Is it surprising that they also have problems with getting their luggage to places? Hardly. In fact, we have talked about McCaig’s Law, which, broadly applied, says that nothing happens in isolation. It is rare for an organization to be incompetent at something like baggage handling and be good at everything else. It’s more likely for them to be incompetent at everything.

I’ve attached a video link down below that explains this.

Who am I to Tell You This?

Well, to start with, I am a 1.5 million mile frequent flier. At one point, I was certified to do quality system audits in the Aerospace Industry (AS9100). I am currently working in the quality systems of major corporate customers, and am deriving a revenue stream in the field of organizational dysfunction.

Jimshell.com

Problem One: Lack of Reliable Data

I suppose since it is summer, there are plenty of recent reports of lost baggage incidents. I will link below an article from the NYT that says that this is much worse this year. This cites some data to the effect that the rate of lost bags in international flights has increased from 9.3 per 1000 passengers to 17.3 within the last year.

This data is provided by a company called SITA who, for a price, will track your baggage for you. That makes them sort of non-objective on this topic.

US DOT Data

The US Department of Transportation has a web page on this topic, and provide you with a spreadsheet, which I have linked below. That data is incomplete and iffy, for two reasons. One is, that they rely on the airlines to report this stuff “voluntarily” and another is that the most recent data is from 2022.

There is one interesting piece of data though. You can compare 2019, the last “normal” Pre-Covid year, and 2022. Here is a table.

Statistic	2019	2022
Passengers Enplained (Millions)	860	791
Baggage Enplained	506 Million	470 Million
Bag loss Rate (reports per 1000 passengers)	3.45%	3.78%

There is an article from The Guardian below that says that the percent of lost bags doubled globally between 2019 and 2022 but that data is also tainted since it came from SITA. What we do know about SITA is that they do a good job of publicizing their service.

So already there is an issue of reliable data to be able to measure the problem. As Deming would say, you can’t change what you don’t measure. What we do know is that apparently, we are stupid. Despite the increased perceived rate of bag loss, people are still checking their bags.

The Case of the Missing Luggage happens because we still fly despite all of this.

Problem Two: Infrastructure issues

If you go farther back in the data, to about 2011 to 2019 and compare the data, you can see that the number of people doing air travel has increased greatly.

Statistic	2011	2019
Passengers Enplained	514	860
Bags Enplained	?	508
Lost Bags	1.72	?
Lost Bags (reports per 1000 passengers)	3.35	?

This data is fairly confusing because of the gaps except for one thing. The amount of air travel increased by 67% during that time.

Since 2011, has there been any new airport construction? According to the references below, there is exactly one new commercial airport opened since then, and that’s up by Minot in the North Dakota oil fields. “The Case of the Missing Luggage” is because your airport is out of capacity.

There are a couple of stories below, per the recent infrastructure bill that was enacted by the US Government. If you read through these, most of the “infrastructure” expenditures are for bigger parking lots and cushier terminals. There is little or no talk about baggage handling equipment, because I guess it is invisible.

So I am ready to throw out the idea that despite the big increase in air travel, there is no big increase in baggage equipment. The Case of the Missing Luggage will be an ongoing issue.

Subsidies for Airlines

Now is a good time to talk about this. It would be a worthwhile PhD project for someone to come up with the per-ticket subsidy for air travel in the US. To do this you would have to include direct payments, indirect payments, and other benefits that the airlines get from the “taxpayers.”

We have talked about this earlier.

Here is how it works: Air travel is popular. It has a lot of knock on effects in the cities with big airports. It makes people happy. It is an indirect subsidy to businesses such as the NFL and the gaming industry. There are rental cars and Starbucks around the airports.

In Europe and Asia, the governments don’t hide this at all. Air travel is considered an essential service so they are part owners of the national airlines.

Socialism?

But, that is considered “socialism” and we don’t do that. Instead, we do airline bailouts every time the airlines get into trouble, and also, there is ongoing government help for “infrastructure.”

There is such a thing as the “Essential Air Subsidy” program, which started in 1979 when the industry was “deregulated.” The government pays up to $100 a ticket per passenger to get them to fly into little airports like Trenton. The fare on Frontier from Atlanta to Trenton on a good day is $17 and it would be insane to do this. But, because of this, they’re able to participate in the subsidy and keep the Trenton airport open, even though it is only about 40 miles from the Philadelphia airport.

The whole system is full of little back door subsidies. American Airlines reported $147 million in profits last year despite getting $293 million in subsidies. Go figure.

The point is, we’ve long ago left the point at which “market forces” are allowed to drive the system. It’s considered politically acceptable because of a lot of the benefits.

Who Benefits?

Well, to start with, the defense industry. Do you think that Boeing and Lockheed would make as much money as they do without the airlines replacing their fleet every few years? It’s an indirect subsidy to them, so that they continue to build stealth bombers.

But in addition to that, a lot of other businesses benefit. Back in the early 90’s the company I worked for had a sales office in the place where their biggest customer’s HQ is. There are examples of this today in Bentonville Arkansas, where the HQ for Wal Mart is.

Someone got the bright idea that the same thing could be accomplished by closing the remote offices, and running everything out of Atlanta. They cleared several million dollars out of their overhead because they found out that if you wanted a customer meeting you could just fly up for the day.

A lot of companies did that. Now that there’s teleworking, there is a paradigm shift in this, too, but we will have to see how that turns out.

The Point of All This

The point is, that most businesses, if there was a failure rate somewhere between 3% and 19%, they’d go broke. The failure rate on the bag claim activity is about at those levels, and it is only because of enormous subsidies that it is that low. The Case of the Missing Luggage happens because people let it.

From the government’s point of view, they want the airlines and airports and care less about the service level. That includes the baggage.

Problem Three: General Industry Mayhem

The best example of this is the problem with Southwest Airlines, that happened just before Christmas.

Southwest had been slow to upgrade their IT systems. This was due to a few bad years due to Covid but also because they have fewer resources than their entrenched competitors.

For a period of a week or so, the whole company basically had to shut down because the system that schedules their crews “melted down.” According to the article below, there were 15,000 flights canceled, and it was considered the largest airline meltdown of its type in history.

The attributed reasons were the IT issues, and also, their underlying business strategy which avoids the “hub and spoke” system.

There’s a reference below from Insure My Flight.com which is a company that will sell you flight insurance. These are the people that make it their business to know how often flights are canceled. In that article, it says that around 4% of the flights are canceled from worst airports. According to that article around ⅓ of all flights are delayed in places like Honolulu and Las Vegas, and in the best performing, something on the order of 16%.

Here’s a graphic:

The point of this? Because of general mayhem in this industry, including a significant amount of flights canceled and delayed, no wonder bags get lost and are late. The Case of the Missing Luggage happens because you and the plane are late yourselves.

Problem Four: Labor Force Issues

This is the one everybody talks about, and there is some element of truth to it. Who are the baggage handlers? These are 18-40 year old males, who didn’t pay attention in math class. They have the hard job of taking your awkwardly packed and overstuffed bag, and throwing it into the hold of an airplane.

Do you want that job? I certainly don’t. I for sure don’t want to do it at midnight on some snowy runway in Cleveland.

Here’s a job description and an actual job review on Indeed.

the case of the missing luggage is caused by this baggage handler

the case of the missing luggage is because the bag handlers don't like their job

The Life of a Baggage Handler

This job pays $15 an hour, they don’t pay for your car or parking, and you’re undermanaged and doing heavy lifting. Are you showing up for work? Me neither. An apartment in Atlanta rents for $1800 a month, so you have to sleep in your mom’s basement, because a 40 hour work week will only get you $2400 a month, and if you also have to pay for a car that’s not enough to break even.

My favorite talking head on this is Nicholas Everstadt.

It is people like this who provide me with a revenue stream. They’re poorly trained, underpaid, disengaged in the workforce and cause a lot of quality issues. They also get into mischief, substance abuse and at some point get ticked off and/or hurt. This particular ad is for something called Unifi, which is an outsourcing agency. You already know how I feel about that. Is this the employees’ fault? There are serious systemic problems in rewarding people who work hard to make sure you get your bags.

This is an enormous untapped resource.that is a loss to the people who like their baggage to arrive on time.

If it makes you feel any better, which it shouldn’t, the problem extends up the food chain.

It goes higher than the Baggage Handler

There’s a story linked down below about a lady that, after repeated calls to the airline, flew to Chicago because the airline couldn’t track her valuable lacrosse sticks. She had attached one of those “air tags” to it, and couldn’t find a competent customer service person who could help her.

The Air Tags are fun by the way. There’s another story of a passenger who used an air tag to track his or her bag to a dumpster behind a sketchy apartment.. Hers, and a lot of other bags had been stolen, apparently by the bag handlers themselves. Passengers are now better able to keep track of this than the airlines, and solve their own “Case of the Missing Luggage.”

What to make of all of this?

I think that this is another one of these cases of fundamental problems with the business model. We as a society are choosing to prop up this luxurious form of travel because we like it. It does come at a cost, ultimately, which is partly paid by taxpayers and/or being balanced on the shoulders of the proletariat, as Marx would say.

Also, this is another system that is so big and so established we can no longer do without it without a lot of whining and drama.

But, here is another case where the traditional solution of “trusting the free market” no longer works. Air travel has evolved into something approaching a necessity for some people.

So here is the bottom line. The Case of the Lost Luggage happens because we allow it. In the grand scheme of things, no one is saying “I’m going to drive to Cleveland next time because there is a 30% chance my flight will be late and a 5% chance my bag will get lost.” They will accept the risk for the time being because the alternative, driving, is less pleasant.

That being the case, the people that own the system, which are the airlines and the airports, aren’t going to change because there is no economic incentive for them to do so. This is the same mentality as the phone company and the bank. You need them, and they don’t need you.

Sorry about the late bag. There is a way to fix it but it requires change. There is a cry from some of these people to re-regulate, but the government usually doesn’t fix anything.

You know what might work? If you pay another $100 per ticket for some assurance that your bag will make it and your plane would be on time. The airline might distribute this money to the baggage crew and the flight attendants to motivate them.

Are you going to pay the extra $100? Comment below if you are willing to do this.

Here is my link to Udemy course, “How Not to Fail at ISO9001”

https://www.udemy.com/course/how-not-to-fail-at-iso9001/learn/lecture/34733460#content

Here’s the link to my Quality Systems Training. You can hire me to give this training in person, complete with questions and answers, and along with a few decades worth of horror stories about product quality, dangerous products, and why people don’t do their jobs.