Airlines Raise Bar to Find Baggage

There are no surprises in Mitchell Pintur's line of work. Just about anything that can be ferried into the baggage hold of an airplane has ended up in his warehouse.

A toilet, a kitchen sink, car seats, strollers - he's seen it all as the manager of central baggage services for Southwest Airlines.

"I've been doing this close to seven years, nothing surprises me," Pintur said. "We've had whole sets of golf clubs left unclaimed. I'm always amazed how people can leave this stuff."

Passengers have been known to leave wheelchairs and whole suitcases full of clothing with the tags on them. Some passengers simply forget their baggage and others can't be found by airline employees who try to piece together a passenger's identity based on their flight information, or identifying information on a suitcase, Pintur said.

Airlines advise passengers to make a baggage claim as soon as they realize their luggage didn't make it. High-tech bar codes and scanning devices also help airlines track the bags. Yet some passengers simply abandon luggage to avoid the hassle of trying to get it back.

"About 99 percent of delayed baggage is delivered to the customer within the first 24 hours of the report," said Sarah Anthony, spokeswoman for Continental Airlines. "If it's not resolved within 24 hours, we make contact with the customer to give updates and to obtain additional information regarding contents. This information is used for secondary tracing purposes."

U.S. airlines lost luggage at a rate of about 5.27 per 1,000 passengers in April, according to the most recent data available from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Most airlines will spend three months searching for the owner of left-behind luggage before the unclaimed items are shipped to a warehouse. US Airways holds on to wayward luggage between six to 12 months before it's tossed out.

"We make every effort to get the bags back to people," said Morgan Durrant, spokesman for Southwest. "We usually have several rounds of attempted contact before they are released from the warehouse."

At Southwest, a staff of five people search out the owners of stranded suitcases or items left on the plane. Employees have returned wedding rings, photographs of the Pope and passports. But the airlines aren't going to hold on to forgotten luggage forever.

Once the airlines stop searching for owners, the goods take on a new life, and sometimes turn a profit for an Alabama business.

Souvenirs and new clothing bought on vacation are finds for savvy shoppers at the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Ala. The company has contracts with most domestic airlines and buys the bags, sight unseen. The company is making money off treasures people leave behind. Also on the racks of the store, $125 Dolce Gabbana jeans with the tags still on them.

The 40,000-square-foot store takes up nearly a city block and handles more then a million items a year, said Brenda Cantrell, spokeswoman for the store. About 60 percent of the items that make it to the store's shelves are clothing. The suitcase contents go through a screening process and everything is washed, even dirty undergarments.

"We only sell about a third of what we get," Cantrell said. "A third of what we get we throw away and we usually donate a third of what we get. But, yes, we do sell some used undergarments. A lot of what we get is new, because one of the things people do when they're on vacation is shop."

Items are screened at the store and priced competitively by employees. But it's not just clothes that go unclaimed. High price jewels and rare artifacts also have been found inside unclaimed suitcases.

"We've had incredible pieces of jewelry," Cantrell said. "We've had a 5.8 carat diamond and a 41 carat emerald."

I-Pods and digital cameras also are popular at the store, but don't expect to hear someone else's podcast collection or see a stranger's vacation pictures.

"We clear the memory," Cantrell said.

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