There’s nothing more frustrating than waiting at the airport carousel for your bag that never materializes. If you’re lucky, this “mishandling” happened because of a mistake:
- The airline never got the bag onto the plane
- The airline put the bag on the wrong plane
- Someone with a bag that’s similar to or the same as yours took your bag by mistake
With those three instances, it’s reasonable to think you’ll eventually get your bag back, either because the airline will find it, or the fellow passenger will realize their mistake and contact either the airline or you, to plan a return of both bags.
But there’s one other reason bags might not be at the carousel: theft.
Although the airside of an airport is practically impossible to get to without proper ID, the arrivals and departures sections are often open to literally anyone, not only travelers. So how surprising is it that thieves hang out at the carousel areas and take any bag they want? Or maybe they walk around the departures area to see what they can find out.
How thieves choose their targets
What are thieves looking for, and how can you keep your stuff safer?
At departures
Luggage tags
Many people put ALLLLLLL of their information on their luggage tags. Full name, address, phone number, and email address. You think it makes sense because that way, if your bag gets lost, they know where to send the bag, right?
Welllll, airlines already know your address because you gave it to them when you bought your ticket. And chances are if your bag is lost by the airline, you want them to send it to where you ARE, not where you’ll be once you get home.
But meanwhile, when a thief can take a quick look at your luggage tag – and maybe even surreptitiously take a picture of it, they now have your home address…and know you’re not home.
Don’t put your home address on your luggage tag. To be THE safest, don’t put ANY personal “home” information on there. Use a work phone number and an email you don’t use very often (because somewhere on the internet, maybe on the dark web, your cell/house number and “regular” email address are attached to your home address). And unless your name is as common as “Chris Smith,” it’s probably best not put your real, full name on that tag, either – because again, it’s too attached to your home address.
At arrivals
The first bags out
When passengers land, a LOT of them don’t immediately go to the luggage carousel. They stop to go to the restroom, or maybe grab a quick snack somewhere. Meanwhile, time marches on and your bags are still on their way to the carousel.
Generally speaking, the first bags to come off the carousel are more likely to be stolen because fewer people have made it to the carousel. Fewer people around means fewer witnesses and fewer chances of being caught.
TSA locks
Thieves have learned that if a piece of luggage has a TSA lock on it, there’s a higher chance of it having something valuable in it (read: you’re locking up the bag to help keep it safe. You’re not going to lock it if all that’s in there is dirty clothes from your trip).
The thing is, those locks aren’t keeping your stuff any safer than if there were no lock on it. Those locks don’t add much protection—keys for many TSA-style locks are widely available, including 3D-printed versions.
Black bag
Black bags are ubiquitous. They’re everywhere, they all look the same, and anyone in a crowded airport with a black bag looks like anyone else with a black bag.
If someone stole your black bag from arrivals, quickly cut off your yellow and orange pom poms, and left the airport, even if you saw them leave, how would you know, from 50 feet away, that was your black bag? You wouldn’t.
And if they were someone caught in the act of taking someone’s black bag, they could easily claim innocence – it looked just like THEIR black bag, officer!
Don’t use a black bag. Get an oddball color. Cover your black bag with stickers. Use a bold-colored strap (with a numerical lock). Or invest in one of these. Make your bag stand out.
Luggage tags
Here we are at luggage tags again. Imagine this scenario:
Flights are cheap. Someone takes a flight from your hometown to Las Vegas. They now go to the luggage carousel area and hang out, waiting for flights from your hometown. And then they start taking pictures of the addresses of the luggage tags on THOSE bags because, once again, you’re not home. And either they can contact their buddies to tell them no one’s at “this address,” or they can fly home and do the heist themselves.
Don’t put your home address on your luggage tag.
Years ago this didn’t happen much
Going back a few decades, someone stealing your bag at the carousel didn’t happen very often because the carousels were loosely gated in, and before you could leave the carousel area, an airport employee was there to check your bag tag to your receipt of the same.
But airports haven’t used that system in forever. It costs too much to have employees making sure people’s belongings are safe, I guess.
So nowadays, it’s 100% “the honor system,” and we all know that some people, instead of honoring that arrangement, use it to their advantage.
Other kinds of theft
Of course, thieves aren’t just people in the community. Unfortunately, people employed by airlines or the airports have been caught stealing, too. Maybe not entire bags, but from suitcases. I mean, this is an easy and quick way for most people to bypass one of those TSA locks entirely. Doesn’t need any skill. And it’s just as simple to close up the bag so it looks like no one ever touched it.
Project Untethered has a lot of recommendations, including some of the ones above, regarding people stealing your luggage. However, they also have many words of wisdom about how to thwart airline and airport employees from stealing stuff out of your bag. Take a look:
Be safe out there, travel friends!
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