The Airlines Most Likely To Lose Or Mishandle Your Luggage

by SharonKurheg

Before the advent of COVID, people in the United States flew a lot. In fact, in 2019 alone, there were 826 million U.S. airline passengers (as a comparison, there were 792 million in 2018). In the same year, there were 485 million bags checked onto U.S. based airlines….and of those, 2.8 million were either lost or mishandled/damaged.

Some airlines are better at keeping track and taking care of your luggage than others. Luggage Hero has been keeping track over the past couple of years, using the figured from the government’s annual Air Travel Consumer Report.

The most recent report is from 2019 and it lists how the 17 major (and not so major) U.S.-based airlines did in taking care of your luggage:

As you can see, Allegiant Air did the best by far, with only 1.75 reports of mishandled pieces of luggage per 1000 passengers, while Envoy Air did the worst, with 9.53 per 1000.

Envoy did the worst in Luggage Hero’s report last year as well (last year’s report was an average from 2012 through 2018), but not as badly as this year. Last year’s best-ranking airline, with the least complaints about mishandled luggage, was Delta (Allegiant wasn’t included in last year’s report).

Of course, you never know exactly when your luggage is lost. But there’s a free and easy way to ensure that it at least got on the plane with you. Click here to find out.

To their credit, the airlines are really good at finding lost luggage. The relatively few bags that are not reunited with their owners are relocated to a store in Scotsboro, Alabama. where their contents are sold to the public. Unclaimed Baggage Center has been going strong for right around 50 years, and thanks to COVID-19, they even sell stuff online now! Here’s more info about them.

Featured Photo: Pexels

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary

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