6 ms·

How does the airline have the legal right to sell your items, and at a possibly lower value than the contents are worth? The article says a diamond rings and ex

How does the airline have the legal right to sell your items, and at a possibly lower value than the contents are worth? The article says a diamond rings and expensive watches were discovered. $3k in compensation likely seems insufficient.

amadeuspagel 6y ago
If an airline had to compensate people for the full value of their luggage, no airline could bear the risk of transporting luggage at all.
- barrkel 6y ago
  Sure they could. They'd get people to buy insurance before the trip and offload the costs and complexity that way.
  - nogabebop23 6y ago
    You can buy insurance for everything, so I was surprised something as obvious as this isn't available; a quick search found lots of 3rd party baggae insurance policies. If you want to find out the true cost of lost luggage it's some profit margin less than these premiums.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Though I suspect there's quite a bit of adverse selection going on there. I know that on the rare occasions I buy travel insurance it's because I have expensive non-refundable reservations of some sort, typically requiring physical activity that I can't do if I sprain my ankle the week before.
- jeroenhd 6y ago
  They shouldn't have to compensate if they kept better track of luggage. Right now they have no incentive to improve themselves or prevent theft by underpaid, overworked baggage handlers. Every suitcase is labeled with a name and a flight. They know exactly who the baggage belongs to, they just can't be bothered to call people who forgot a suitcase or send people their luggage back. I don't see why we should accept anything other than either return of the baggage or full compensation.
  - amadeuspagel 6y ago
    >Right now they have no incentive to improve themselves or prevent theft by underpaid, overworked baggage handlers. >Every suitcase is labeled with a name and a flight. They know exactly who the baggage belongs to, they just can't be bothered to call people who forgot a suitcase or send people their luggage back. They do have an incentive: The $3k compensation. The fact that that's not enough, shows that it's a bit more complex then calling people. >I don't see why we should accept anything other than either return of the baggage or full compensation. Because otherwise accepting luggage would be to risky for airlines, or, as another commenter suggested, they'd have to make people buy insurance.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    > Every suitcase is labeled with a name and a flight. They know exactly who the baggage belongs to For whatever it's worth, I once lost my drivers license on an airplane and it was returned to me in the mail a few months later. Of course, returning a drivers license cost them a lot less (nothing) than returning luggage would have. I'm not sure they had an incentive to return it though, beyond basic courtesy. (Evidently if you drop a drivers license in the mail without postage or an envelope, the USPS will send it on to whatever address is listed on it.)
  - crazygringo 6y ago
    The incentive is the $3K. It works. And no, not every suitcase is labeled, that's the entire point. Luggage gets lost when those tags get torn off, chewed up, etc. Luggage is handled by both humans and conveyor belts, and all sorts of things can go wrong. And how would you define "full compensation"? If your luggage is lost, you could just lie and say it was carrying a million dollars in cash. How is anybody going to prove what full compensation is? Or, if you were required to declare the value of your luggage when checking in, and you said it was a million dollars, the airline would just say nope, not gonna take it. Too risky for us if we lose it, which we can't guarantee because we employ fallible human beings. Smart people work on this. The current solution really is a pretty good one, for what's practically achievable given the price you pay for your ticket.
    - 6y ago
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  There is a middle ground where they actually make a small amount of effort and trash the stuff that is unclaimed instead of profiting off it. Then there would be an incentive to be slightly competent as everything that didn't get back to the owners added trivially to your trash bill instead of netting you a profit. In fact if you want to do one better charge a small conveyance fee for the cost of handling it say $10 and the incentives will be ever better aligned with doing a reasonable job.
voisin 6y ago
It’s part of the standard terms & conditions, like burying it in software EULA, and because it is standard in the industry, they don’t have to call it out in any special way or get separate waivers. You agree to it when you buy your ticket.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  Not everything in those agreements would hold up in court.
  - voisin 6y ago
    Undoubtedly, but who wants to spend $100k+ to fight it in court to prove it? Such is the unfortunate nature of our civil law...
    - Scoundreller 6y ago
      Depends on the state and where the airline is based. And since we’re dealing with airlines, you may have tribunals/agencies available to you that are far more accessible/cheap/free. E.g. in Canada: Air Passenger Protection complaints: https://rppa-appr.ca/file-air-travel-complaint https://rppa-appr.ca/file-air-travel-complaint In Quebec, lawyers aren’t even allowed in small claims courts.
jimlikeslimes 6y ago
I know of a few well known tourist attractions in the UK who accumulate a lot of lost property tend to hold onto it for a period of time and then auction off high value items and donate the money to charity. Otherwise things tend to rot away in lost property stores for years. The amount of space required to store lost property for those type of organisations is crazy too.
raldi 6y ago
The law considers the terms and conditions you didn't read to be a contract when you buy a ticket and check bags.
caseysoftware 6y ago
Better idea: Don't put wildly expensive things in your checked bags. I'd wager most of those items are pre-TSA anyway as they have a pattern of stealing things. Years ago I visited the Microsoft employee store in Redmond where you could buy Xbox games for super cheap. They actually had a sign at the register warning people not to put them in checked bags because they disappeared.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > I'd wager most of those items are pre-TSA anyway as they have a pattern of stealing things. How do you know it's TSA and not the airline's baggage handlers? The latter actually handle your bags a lot more than the former (and do so in places which are not monitored with security cameras).
  - kortilla 6y ago
    It’s possible, but there is literally no reason for an airline baggage handler to open a bag. They would need a lot of time alone with the bags to dig through each one looking for valuables without being caught. TSA gets the advantage of seeing inside of the bags on a screen to know which ones to “pull for more inspection”.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]

amadeuspagel 6y ago

If an airline had to compensate people for the full value of their luggage, no airline could bear the risk of transporting luggage at all.

barrkel 6y ago
Sure they could. They'd get people to buy insurance before the trip and offload the costs and complexity that way.
- nogabebop23 6y ago
  You can buy insurance for everything, so I was surprised something as obvious as this isn't available; a quick search found lots of 3rd party baggae insurance policies. If you want to find out the true cost of lost luggage it's some profit margin less than these premiums.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Though I suspect there's quite a bit of adverse selection going on there. I know that on the rare occasions I buy travel insurance it's because I have expensive non-refundable reservations of some sort, typically requiring physical activity that I can't do if I sprain my ankle the week before.
jeroenhd 6y ago
They shouldn't have to compensate if they kept better track of luggage. Right now they have no incentive to improve themselves or prevent theft by underpaid, overworked baggage handlers. Every suitcase is labeled with a name and a flight. They know exactly who the baggage belongs to, they just can't be bothered to call people who forgot a suitcase or send people their luggage back. I don't see why we should accept anything other than either return of the baggage or full compensation.
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  >Right now they have no incentive to improve themselves or prevent theft by underpaid, overworked baggage handlers. >Every suitcase is labeled with a name and a flight. They know exactly who the baggage belongs to, they just can't be bothered to call people who forgot a suitcase or send people their luggage back. They do have an incentive: The $3k compensation. The fact that that's not enough, shows that it's a bit more complex then calling people. >I don't see why we should accept anything other than either return of the baggage or full compensation. Because otherwise accepting luggage would be to risky for airlines, or, as another commenter suggested, they'd have to make people buy insurance.
- catalogia 6y ago
  > Every suitcase is labeled with a name and a flight. They know exactly who the baggage belongs to For whatever it's worth, I once lost my drivers license on an airplane and it was returned to me in the mail a few months later. Of course, returning a drivers license cost them a lot less (nothing) than returning luggage would have. I'm not sure they had an incentive to return it though, beyond basic courtesy. (Evidently if you drop a drivers license in the mail without postage or an envelope, the USPS will send it on to whatever address is listed on it.)
- crazygringo 6y ago
  The incentive is the $3K. It works. And no, not every suitcase is labeled, that's the entire point. Luggage gets lost when those tags get torn off, chewed up, etc. Luggage is handled by both humans and conveyor belts, and all sorts of things can go wrong. And how would you define "full compensation"? If your luggage is lost, you could just lie and say it was carrying a million dollars in cash. How is anybody going to prove what full compensation is? Or, if you were required to declare the value of your luggage when checking in, and you said it was a million dollars, the airline would just say nope, not gonna take it. Too risky for us if we lose it, which we can't guarantee because we employ fallible human beings. Smart people work on this. The current solution really is a pretty good one, for what's practically achievable given the price you pay for your ticket.
  - 6y ago
michaelmrose 6y ago
There is a middle ground where they actually make a small amount of effort and trash the stuff that is unclaimed instead of profiting off it. Then there would be an incentive to be slightly competent as everything that didn't get back to the owners added trivially to your trash bill instead of netting you a profit. In fact if you want to do one better charge a small conveyance fee for the cost of handling it say $10 and the incentives will be ever better aligned with doing a reasonable job.

voisin 6y ago

It’s part of the standard terms & conditions, like burying it in software EULA, and because it is standard in the industry, they don’t have to call it out in any special way or get separate waivers. You agree to it when you buy your ticket.

Scoundreller 6y ago
Not everything in those agreements would hold up in court.
- voisin 6y ago
  Undoubtedly, but who wants to spend $100k+ to fight it in court to prove it? Such is the unfortunate nature of our civil law...
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    Depends on the state and where the airline is based. And since we’re dealing with airlines, you may have tribunals/agencies available to you that are far more accessible/cheap/free. E.g. in Canada: Air Passenger Protection complaints: https://rppa-appr.ca/file-air-travel-complaint https://rppa-appr.ca/file-air-travel-complaint In Quebec, lawyers aren’t even allowed in small claims courts.

jimlikeslimes 6y ago

I know of a few well known tourist attractions in the UK who accumulate a lot of lost property tend to hold onto it for a period of time and then auction off high value items and donate the money to charity. Otherwise things tend to rot away in lost property stores for years. The amount of space required to store lost property for those type of organisations is crazy too.

raldi 6y ago

The law considers the terms and conditions you didn't read to be a contract when you buy a ticket and check bags.

caseysoftware 6y ago

Better idea: Don't put wildly expensive things in your checked bags. I'd wager most of those items are pre-TSA anyway as they have a pattern of stealing things. Years ago I visited the Microsoft employee store in Redmond where you could buy Xbox games for super cheap. They actually had a sign at the register warning people not to put them in checked bags because they disappeared.

pdonis 6y ago
> I'd wager most of those items are pre-TSA anyway as they have a pattern of stealing things. How do you know it's TSA and not the airline's baggage handlers? The latter actually handle your bags a lot more than the former (and do so in places which are not monitored with security cameras).
- kortilla 6y ago
  It’s possible, but there is literally no reason for an airline baggage handler to open a bag. They would need a lot of time alone with the bags to dig through each one looking for valuables without being caught. TSA gets the advantage of seeing inside of the bags on a screen to know which ones to “pull for more inspection”.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]