The chances are improving that you and your suitcases will arrive together are better than ever, according to reports covering U.S. airlines.
In fact, the rate of mishandled bags is the lowest it's been since the Department of Transportation began tracking it in 1987, and it's down 60% from 10 years ago.
On the other hand, while passenger traffic is up, the share of travelers checking their bags is down; over the past dozen years or so that's been a trend driven by a plethora of bag fees.
But not all the improvement can be attributed to lower volume; a lot of it is due to new technologies the airlines have been bringing on line, including real-time tracking of each piece and a renewed focus on just plain basics.
Among the technology improvements, count Delta's investment in putting RFID chips into the long baggage tags attached to each checked bag. They allow Delta to direct bags to the right plane, to scan them aboard and reject ones that go elsewhere—and increasingly, allow you to track your bag yourself.
That's probably among the reasons Delta has the lowest mishandled bag rate among the majors; overall, only smaller carriers are doing better. Delta says it's given them a 10% improvement since it was installed.
American is last among the major carriers for mishandled bags, but even so has improved by 50% over 10 years ago, even accounting for disruptions due to its merger with US Airways 4 years ago. It's also introduced live-tracking, but still mostly relies on manual scans, as do the smaler lines.
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