With these tips, you can be sure to receive your luggage on time at your holiday destination or at home.
This summer has seen unprecedented travel chaos, from staff strikes to airport capacity mandates and hundreds of flight cancellations – and a huge issue that has emerged for travellers is the worry over missing luggage. Travellers across the world have seen their checked luggage sent to the wrong destination, or sometimes never leaving their point of departure at all. Some of the most prominent European airports seeing this issue are London Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol and Frankfurt. Widely shared images on social media have shown thousands of suitcases and bags piled high in baggage reclaim awaiting their owners, many of whom had no idea where to start looking.
Travellers have already begun inventing new and effective ways of minimising the possibility of losing luggage, particularly on long-haul and transatlantic flights. These range from using the latest tech to track bags to their final destination to simply avoiding hold luggage altogether. Travel chaos is set to continue until at least September, with Heathrow implementing a capacity limit of 100,000 passengers per day until September 12 and airlines such as Lufthansa, British Airways and EasyJet all planning strikes over the next month.
Avoiding checked luggage altogether is the only fail-safe way of ensuring your luggage doesn’t get lost. This can be extremely difficult when travelling with budget airlines such as EasyJet, Ryanair, Vueling or TUI, which have strict hand luggage policies that generally only allow for a small handbag or laptop bag. For shorter trips, hand luggage only is highly advisable and possible; however, for travellers heading on an extended holiday, there are a few ways to maximise space.
Many passengers are wearing heavy or bulky clothing on their flights, allowing more room in bags for clothes and other items. Similarly, bag sizes are checked before boarding a flight, not at security – duty-free bags do not count towards your allowance. Hence, it is possible to purchase food or gifts in duty-free and put some clothing or toiletries in a duty-free shopping bag for slightly more space.
Until recently, AirTags weren’t particularly popular, however people have quickly realised how useful the affordable, portable trackers can be for keeping track of luggage. AirTags cost around €30 and up to 16 can be paired with one iPhone. When AirTags are put into hold luggage, they are accurate for tracking up to 30 feet. While this may not be helpful in a sea of bags at an airport, it will tell you that your bag has left its point of departure and if it has arrived with you.
In the unfortunate scenario that your luggage does go missing, you will be able to immediately see the location of your bag and report this to airline staff, who can then locate and forward it on to you. This has already been used successfully by hundreds of passengers this summer, saving the stress and confusion which normally comes with locating one bag amongst thousands of others.
An unusual but useful method used by travellers heading on longer holidays, shipping your luggage ahead of you with a reputable company can also save a lot of worries. As long as you have 2-3 days in your final destination, there is a range of companies who specialise in shipping your bags direct to any address, including hotels and AirBnBs. Although this may be a slightly more expensive option, it is often a similar price to paying for extra hold luggage with many airlines. And it offers the peace of mind that your luggage is specifically being taken care of, as opposed to potentially being mixed up with that of hundreds of other passengers.
