The Real Reasons Behind Air Travel Baggage Delays

25.08.2023 - 13:56 / skift.com / Justin Dawes

Thousands of people who checked in their bags with Southwest Airlines late last year did not see them again for nearly a month. 

After a storm of issues led to the airline canceling thousands of flights in late December, the majority of bags were not returned to their owners until late January, a worst case scenario for travelers uneasy about checking bags on a flight. 

The luggage was instead piled in heaps at airports, their photos circulating with headlines that dominated travel news for days. 

Similar incidents occurred the previous summer, and more are bound to happen again without intervention. The number of airline passengers is expected to soon surpass 2019 levels, and experts question whether the existing infrastructure will be sufficient, especially because investment took a pause during the pandemic. 

“I would say disruptions in the system are going to become, unfortunately, more pronounced,” said Darin Juby, head of baggage transformation for Future Travel Experience, a sort of think tank for air travel innovation comprised of industry professionals.

One of the biggest issues right now is a lack of workforce throughout the air travel industry, including the workers who handle luggage and transfer it from one place to another. When flight delays and cancellations exacerbate the issues of outdated general airline tech and a workforce shortage, delayed luggage is a done deal — and outdated baggage technology only makes the problem worse. 

From the time a passenger drops off luggage until the time of pickup, that bag goes through a system that typically is decades old. Despite advanced consumer tracking tech, most airlines still track bags with a paper tag that contains a barcode. While Amazon warehouses are full of robots organizing packages, airports still transport bags via conveyor belt and manual labor. While an online package can be traced along its route from start to finish, most air travel passengers are left wondering where their bags are until they finally lay eyes on them again. 

While it will take decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to fully realize the ideal baggage system, there are changes that could be made immediately to increase efficiency and prevent delays. 

When it comes to baggage technology, Juby believes one of the top issues is lack of data communication between stakeholders. Much of the data needed exists in some form, but not in a way that can be shared. Between the airport, one or more airlines, and often multiple third-party vendors, there’s a lot that could go wrong when transferring a bag.

“There’s not really a standard way that airlines and airports share information,” said Juby, who’s also the Toronto Airport’s director of baggage services. “I think