Airlines stumble in getting luggage to arrive on time

Odds are about 1-in-83 that you were a victim of lost luggage in 2010.

And after two years of improved baggage handling, airlines slipped last year in getting passengers' checked luggage to arrive on time, a report released late Tuesday shows.

U.S. carriers saw a slight improvement, but European airlines' performance declined.

Local airport officials underscore that airlines are responsible for baggage handling. At McCarran, the only time a bag is not under an airline's or an airline-hired baggage handler's control is when it is being screened for explosives. Once a bag clears that step, it goes right back into the hands of an airline agent who is responsible for getting it onto the correct aircraft, airport officials said.

Worldwide, 29.4 million bags last year didn't arrive on the same flight as their owners, according to SITA, an aviation communications and technology provider. That's 12.07 mishandled bags for every 1,000 passengers or about one for about 83 passengers, a 6 percent increase over 2009.

SITA attributes the rise in baggage problems to more passengers flying, as well as major travel disruptions from severe winter weather and the ash cloud from an Icelandic volcanic eruption that grounded a large portion of European air traffic in April.

Difficulty with handling bags was greater in Europe. The mishandled rate there climbed to 12.6 bags per 1,000 passengers from 10.9 bags in 2009. In the United States, the rate fell to 3.57 bags per 1,000 passengers from 3.99 bags, the Department of Transportation said.

Returning delayed bags to their owners cost airlines $2.95 billion last year, up from $2.5 billion in 2009.

Despite the slip, airlines are doing better than 2007. Back then, 42.4 million bags were delayed at the rate of 18.86 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers.

SITA credits the overall improvement to a combination of better tracking and fewer bags being checked because of relatively new fees. U.S. airlines alone are collecting more than $3.3 billion a year in such fees.

McCarran is still one of only two major airports in the world (Hong Kong is the other) that use radio-frequency identification tags on all outbound checked luggage. This enables the bags to move quickly and efficiently through an elaborate, miles-long maze of conveyors used during the TSA's screening process, local officials said.

Radio-frequency identification tags have proven to have a 99 percent-plus accuracy rate at the local airport, so the likelihood of a bag getting lost while under McCarran's care is significantly reduced when compared with the industry norm, officials also said. But once a bag is clear of screening, the responsibility reverts to the airlines, which each have their own systems for baggage tracking.