Lost luggage in numbers: what happens when your bag doesn't arrive

“A lock is a lock, but where is my suitcase? Especially when you fly far, through several airports, and at the end you wait for your bag. It doesn't come, and doesn't come, and then you start checking where it is. You're not waiting blindly: you can see it's still 500 m away, and then at last it's up on the belt.”

Andrus Kaalep, founder of PureNomadFlow

Everyone who flies with a checked bag knows the moment: the belt keeps turning, the crowd thins out, and your bag is not there. How often does that actually happen, and what can you do about it?

The numbers

Every year SITA, the company that runs the IT behind most of the world's airports, publishes its Baggage IT Insights report. The 2025 edition covers 2024:

• 33.4 million bags were mishandled worldwide in 2024.
• That is 6.3 bags for every 1,000 passengers, one of the lowest rates on record.
• Europe did worse: 12.3 bags per 1,000 passengers, almost twice the world average.
• 41% of all mishandled bags went wrong at a transfer, when the bag changes planes.
• 74% were delayed, 18% damaged or pilfered, and 8% lost or stolen.
• Only 42% of passengers had access to real-time updates on where their bag was.

In plain words: if you fly often in Europe, and especially with a connection, a delayed bag is not bad luck. It is a matter of time.

What “mishandled” usually means

Most mishandled bags are not gone. Three out of four are delayed: they missed the connection and arrive on a later flight, a day or two later. The real problem is the waiting without knowing. Is the bag still at the first airport, sitting at the transfer, or already in the city and on its way?

The airline's tracing system will find it eventually. But at the belt, at midnight, after a long journey, “we are looking for it” is all you get.

Where Find My changes the experience

A Find My tracker in or on your bag does not make the airline faster. What it changes is what you know. On your iPhone you can see where your bag was last seen, through Apple's network of devices nearby. That means you can:

• stop waiting at the belt when the bag is clearly still at the transfer airport;
• tell the baggage desk exactly where it is, instead of describing a black suitcase;
• see it move, and know it is coming, like Andrus watching the last 500 metres.

That is why we built it into the things you check in. AirLock is a TSA-approved suitcase lock with Apple Find My inside, up to two months per charge over USB-C and no subscription. AirPack, our 28 L travel backpack, has Find My built in as well, next to a concealed TSA lock.

If your bag does not arrive: a short checklist

1. Report it before you leave the airport. Go to the airline's baggage service desk and get a written report with a reference number.
2. Keep your boarding pass and bag tag. The tag number is how the bag is traced.
3. Check your tracker and tell the desk where the bag was last seen.
4. Keep the receipts for anything essential you have to buy while you wait.
5. Claim in writing, in time. Under the Montreal Convention, a claim for a delayed bag must be made within 21 days of receiving it, and damage must be reported within 7 days.

And one habit that makes all of this less painful: keep the things you cannot do without, such as medication, chargers, documents and one change of clothes, in your carry-on.

Source: SITA, Baggage IT Insights 2025 (data for 2024).