What should I do if an airline loses my luggage?

Airlines world over do not lose baggage deliberately. This is because airlines are supposed to deliver the bags at the destination, anyway by the same flight as that of the passenger or in case of a missing bag by a later flight.

Baggage is labelled with a tag which contain the name of the passenger, itinerary of the passenger, tag number and a bar code. The tag is printed in separate pieces enabling it to be pasted in the bag, another small piece containing only the tag number in another place of the bag, one acknowledgement copy to the passenger normally stuck to the boarding pass or the ticket. The idea of keeping the tag and another piece on the bag is to identify the bag even if the main tag is missing by any chance. The bag moves through a conveyor belt will be scanned en-route to the baggage make up area of the airline concerned. From there the baggage is sorted as per the destination and moved to the aircraft concerned to be loaded in to the aircraft.

When dealing with thousands of bags there can be a chance of one or a few pieces getting mixed up and reaching a wrong destination which is called mishandling of baggage by airline.

When the passenger reports that his baggage has not been located on arrival the airline tries to locate it by computerised World Tracing mechanism by sending a world tracer (if it is an international travel) or for domestic some airlines follow the same system and others have their own systems to locate bag. Once located the baggage is sent to the airport of claim to be identified and claimed by the passenger either visiting the airport or by delivering at his place of stay (for international baggage clearance passenger has to be present at the customs clearance counter).

IATA rules say that a passenger who has not been delivered his baggage has a right to claim an interim compensation and airlines do pay that amount immediately to buy goods which are required for immediate use.

Even after hectic search, if the baggage could not be traced, passengers can put up a claim for compensation. The compensation is fixed according to the weight of the baggage which is prescribed by IATA (in case of international travel) and for domestic baggage claims airlines do have almost similar arrangements.

If the claim amount is more than the policy of the airline, then the passenger has a right to approach the top management of the airline and still not satisfied can approach a court of law for better payment of compensation. The decision of the court is final.