In a recent mix-up at Hyderabad airport in India, IndiGo forgot to carry the check-in luggage of several passengers on a domestic flight. The airline released a statement confirming the error and said that it is working towards relocating the bags. Airlines all around the world regularly deal with the problem of lost baggage, with passengers now even resorting to technology to track their belongings during air travel.
Missing bags
IndiGo forgot to load the check-in bags of several passengers on a recent flight out of Hyderabad. The incident occurred on February 9th on flight 6E 409 between Hyderabad and Vishakhapatnam. The Airbus A321neo took off at 13:38 and landed in Visakhapatnam at 14:28.
The carrier’s ground staff were reportedly unaware of the problem until passengers alerted them to the situation while waiting for their bags at the airport. After waiting for about an hour, the airline confirmed the mix-up and assured to return the bags to the affected passengers at their homes. IndiGo released a statement, which said,
“We confirm that 37 bags were inadvertently left behind for flight 6E 409 departing from Hyderabad to Vishakhapatnam. We are ensuring that all bags are delivered safely to the customers’ addresses in Visakhapatnam. We regret the inconvenience caused to the passengers.”
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Not so uncommon
IndiGo’s latest incident is by no means an isolated one. Mint published a report in August 2022 and cited data taken from a study done by LocalCircles, which revealed that one in four fliers in India complained about losing their luggage in the previous three years. One in three passengers in India also faced situations where airlines damaged their baggage.
But this isn’t a problem only in India. Airlines and passengers around the world deal with lost or damaged baggage. These incidents increased significantly last year as airlines faced traffic surges during peak travel periods but did not have an adequate workforce to handle the situation.
Aer Lingus is still reportedly receiving claims of lost baggage from the summer of 2022. The carrier told an Oireachtas Transport Committee in Ireland in July that it was dealing with up to 1,200 missing baggage claims.
In December, a family of five landed in Vancouver on an Air Canada flight on Christmas Day for their annual ski trip to Whistler, but some of their bags were missing. Unfortunately, they had to spend thousands of dollars extra to rent ski equipment and buy winter clothes. Eventually, they found their bags at Vancouver airport on their way home to Charlotte, North Carolina.
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To combat the problem, a growing trend to track bags during air travel is that of passengers using electronic tags. Several devices are now available, including Apple’s Air Tag to the Galaxy SmartTag by Samsung, which offer tech-savvy passengers all the info about the location of their bags. However, this trend has not yet caught on in India so much.
Have you ever dealt with lost baggage during air travel? Please leave your comments below.