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Lost Luggage - Where does it go?

Posted on February 2, 2008 
Filed Under Travel

I’m sure you have heard pretty horrific stories about lost luggage; or maybe you have experienced this first hand. It’s surely something on my mind every time I have to wait in front of the carousel and my bags seem to take longer than usual to show up.

According to the department of transportation a total of 10 thousand bags do not reach their destination each day. Of this, 99% is returned to the owners within 5 days, leaving us with a 1% that gets “lost forever”. It doesn’t sound like much, but if we do the math, it equals to almost 37 thousand bags each year!

But where exactly does all the “lost” luggage go?

The answer lies in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Alabama, in a store called “The Unclaimed Baggage Center”. Over one million items pass through this store annually. It stocks more than 7 thousand new and pre-owned items daily - designer clothes, jewelry, electronics, cameras, sporting goods, among other.

Airlines state they put a lot of effort into tracking down the owners of lost luggage. They typically hang on to baggage for 90 days while they try to find the owners. After one hundred days they will usually reimburse passengers for their loss, and sell the “unclaimed” bags to the Unclaimed Baggage Center, by the truckload!

Check out some of the stuff this store has found:

• A huge 40.95-carat natural emerald.
• Egyptian artifacts dating back to 1500 B.C., including a mummified falcon and a shrunken head.
• A complete and neatly packed parachute.
• A special camera designed for NASA’s Space Shuttle.
• A guidance system for an F16 fighter jet valued at a quarter of a million dollars belonging to the US Navy.
• A rattlesnake, found alive by the staff.

It seems to me that airlines put so much effort in tracking down the owner’s luggage, that they actually forget to open the bags to try to find who they belong to. Next time your luggage gets lost, make a quick trip to one of Alabama’s top attractions (with your airline’s reimbursement), you might get lucky and find your stuff still on display.

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