First off, this sort of comment is against HN rules. Second, as others have noticed, airlines have been caught dumping bags at clearance houses days after they

First off, this sort of comment is against HN rules. Second, as others have noticed, airlines have been caught dumping bags at clearance houses days after they were lost. I guarantee some actuary at the airline has figured out the cost of selling the luggage vs risk (zero, even though it's outright theft) vs cost of figuring out who the bag belongs to. Third, "we can't figure out who it belongs to" is feigned helplessness. Some airports and airlines are much worse than others, demonstrating that good tracking and low loss is perfectly possible. Nobody is holding them responsible, so of course they don't care. The industry dragged its feet adopting RFID which is more reliable than barcodes for sorting and tracking. And really, the only reason airline are improving is because airtags and the like helped customers catch airlines out in lies. From listening to a NPR finance show, the airlines now even know, automatically, when a bag isn't on a plane with a passenger.