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Comments (9)
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Save/ShareNearly 1,000 pieces of luggage entrusted to the airlines went the way of Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart in the past couple of years, vanishing from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
The airlines made passengers fill out piles of paperwork and provide lists of items in the lost bags. They were stuck reimbursing the losses, liable for roughly $1,000 per passenger.
So where did those hundreds of bags go?
Police think they've discovered the mother hoard. On Thursday, they arrested a couple in Waddell, Ariz., on charges they stole nearly 1,000 pieces of baggage over the course of a year.
The suspects Keith King, 61, and his wife, Stacy Lynne Legg-King, 38, were "booked on suspicion of burglary and possession of stolen property," according to The Arizona Republic. Police say they caught King on surveillance video. Apparently the couple tried to make money by selling the contents of the stolen luggage at yard sales and flea markets.
A TripAdvisor poll of 1,830 respondents this week asked, "Are you concerned about the security of your luggage at baggage claim?"
Always: 32%
Often: 26%
Rarely: 31%
Never: 11%
Phoenix airport officials admit that they had stopped posting guards at baggage carousels to examine baggage-claim checks.
Do you think guards should be posted to monitor the baggage carousels?
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Its amazing that we are now 8 years past 9-11, living in a new world of security and they still don't know if you bag is on a plane. The fact that an employee or a couple of employees can walk out of the airport with two to three bags per day and get away for it for a year, really makes it look like airport "security" is all for show...
Has anyone done in studies on how the airports used their 9-11 funds + $10 roundtrip ticket 9-11 tax revenue? And how those funds impacted security or airport efficiency?
Posted By Iolaire McFadden on November 6, 2009, 2:11 PM
This happened a number of years ago in O'hare in Chicago. I guess this is a copy cat deal. It is easy to steal bags. If you just take a few, no one will notice.
In Chicago it was a whole black church group that was making money for the church from those "Rich White folk"!!
Posted By Steve on November 9, 2009, 10:55 AM
I am not surprised. There is absolutely NO security at the baggage carousels. In all my years of flying, there was only one airport that asked for a baggage tag before you could exit.
Posted By VAjaybird on November 9, 2009, 2:45 PM
I have never been stopped by officials anywhere looking to verify that I am taking my own luggage. I always thought it worked on the honor system, so I try to get to baggage claim as quickly as possible. I did once approach someone who I thought was taking my suitcase--it has a very distinctive pattern and in 12 years that was the only time I saw an identical piece.
At Midway Airport (Chicago) a few weeks ago, we did not claim our luggage right away because we first had to claim an unaccompanied minor arriving on a different flight than ours. The luggage sat for about an hour. As advised before our flight, we went to the baggage claim office to get the luggage and were told it was locked up next to the baggage carousel and it would be released to us when we showed our claim slip. We went to the worker monitoring the unclaimed baggage, but he let us take the pieces without verifying they were ours, and although some luggage was indeed on a locked rope (kind of like for a bicycle), the rope had not been passed through the handles of our luggage. So, Midway has a system in place to deter theft, although implementation of that system is apparently spotty.
Posted By gretagardening on November 9, 2009, 3:05 PM
I have always felt that a claim check should be presented. While not stolen, I had a businessman take my suitcase by accident in Kansas City and not realize it till he had driven halfway across the state and opened the bag at his hotel later that night. It took two days to get it back and I was lucky. At LAX you can't even see the other side of the carousel so it would be easy to take ta random bag and walk out the door while the bags owner waited on the other side of the carousel out of view. We are screened to within and inch of our lives, pay security fees and are given no security for our bags in return.
Posted By Tricia on November 9, 2009, 3:48 PM
The stolen bag problem on commercial flights would be solved by Congress making the theft or tampering with luggage a federal terrorism crime punishable as such. No one would steal a lap top if they were facing 40 years in jail for it.
Posted By GRB on November 9, 2009, 3:58 PM
I too only had one airport check my baggage claim check. At another airport, a man picked up my suitcase, I said, "Hey, that's my bag". He didn't even check it (which he would have done had he thought it was his and it was just a mistake), he just handed it to me. I am convinced he was going to steal it.
Posted By Kathy on November 9, 2009, 9:17 PM
GRB, a severe penalty is NOT the answer. In 21 years of practice, I have never had a criminal client who considered the length of a prison term when they committed their crime. Criminals don't think like the rest of us. Studies have shown that the only solution is effective enforcement to reduce the chances of success. Only once in 40+ years of travel have I ever had to show a baggage claim check.
Posted By Russ on November 12, 2009, 6:04 PM
In the lesser developed countries they ask for your baggage claim check, I know since I lost mine and had to go through a lot to get my own baggage, which is okay as it was safe.
Posted By r deming on January 26, 2010, 2:09 PM