It was the year of “the summer of lost luggage”, in which travellers across the world told stories of disappearing bags as the aviation industry struggled to keep up with rebounding demand.
Now, newly collated statistics show the extent of the disruption: the rate of mishandled baggage almost doubled globally in 2022, with 26m pieces of luggage delayed, lost or damaged.
That mishandled luggage rate soared to 7.6 bags per 1,000 passengers in 2022, up from 4.35 in 2021 and 5.6 in 2019, according to the aviation data company SITA’s annual insights report.
For international flights, the mishandling rate was 19.3 bags per 1,000 passengers, more than eight times higher than the rate of 2.4 for domestic flights.
This was largely because flight transfers were more likely on international journeys, SITA’s chief executive, David Lavorel, said. Errors during flight transfers were the largest contributor to mishandled baggage in 2022, accounting for 42% of affected luggage.
Lavorel described the rise in mishandled baggage as an “exponential increase”.
“The swift comeback took the industry by surprise,” he said. This left ground handlers scrambling to navigate the surge in traffic with reduced staff, he said.
There were 3.42 billion air passengers in 2022, up from 2.28 billion in 2021 but still down from the pre-pandemic peak of 4.54 billion in 2019.
Nicole Hogg, a baggage expert with SITA, said a less favourable consequence of the return of air travel was the emergence of “baggage mountains”.
“The sudden influx of travellers caught the industry off guard, resulting in global issues and significant disruptions from Europe to Australia and the Americas.”
Mishandling rates were considerably worse for airlines operating in Europe, with a rate of 15.7 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers, compared with 6.35 in North America and 3.04 in the Asia-Pacific region.
Larger airports that had passengers transferring through them experienced “the most severe repercussions”, she said, which had a flow-on effect at smaller airports attempting to return baggage to owners at their destinations.
Hogg noted the sector’s workforce, which had been decimated by Covid border restrictions and forced many workers into new industries, was still hampered by labour shortages and inexperienced workers fresh to aviation.
These workforce issues also caused cancellations, delays and long security queues at airports in 2022, and continued to threaten the industry’s post-pandemic recovery, Hogg said.
The surge in mishandled baggage to 7.6 per 1,000 passengers – although still an improvement on 2007’s rate of 18.88 – means the industry has lost significant ground on the progress it made over the previous decade in improving luggage handling through technological advances and automation, the SITA report said.
A mishandled piece of baggage is one that is reported as delayed, damaged, stolen or lost, with the global rate taking into account all claims made with airline or ground-handling companies on behalf of passengers.
Of the 26m mishandled bags in 2022, 80% were delayed, an increase of 9% on the previous year. Damaged bags accounted for 13% of mishandled bags, while 7% were lost or stolen.
