Lost baggage gripes take off

Airline industry experts cite smaller jets, frugal fliers

The next time your bags don't get off the same plane as you, consider losing a little weight.

OK, airlines really aren't blaming hefty passengers for an increase in lost bags, but weight is an issue. When small planes reach their maximum weight, something has to go, airline employees at Raleigh-Durham International Airport say. It's usually the bags.

Complaints about lost or misdirected luggage rose 25 percent last year, a study shows. Some in the industry link the increase to the rise of smaller, regional jets.

There are other factors, too. Like frugal fliers who book trips that require different carriers for different legs of their trip. Those are just multiple ways to kiss your belongings bye-bye.

Of course, it's not just luggage that travelers are complaining about.

The study, done annually by professors at Wichita State University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, looks at timeliness, denied boardings and a variety of other customer complaints, including laments about luggage. This year, the overall quality of service for the major U.S. airlines was at its lowest level in five years.

But baggage handling was the feature infraction.

"One part of the promise by the airlines is to get you and your bags to the same place at the same time, [but] it's going the wrong way," said Dean E. Headley, a Wichita State University business professor and co-author of the study.

With 2005 boardings already higher than before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and no reason to think they will slacken, the findings paint a bleak picture for customer service this year.

But airline officials say they're working on it.

Valerie Wunder, spokeswoman for US Airways, which had 9.62 baggage complaints per 1,000 passengers, said the airline spent $2 million for new equipment and hired 400 people to remedy baggage problems in Philadelphia. The airline also will spend $20 million by 2008 to improve facilities including antiquated baggage handling equipment. "Baggage is a main focus," she said.

Aside from the increase in smaller planes, airlines and industry trade groups blame delays at security checkpoints and an antiquated air traffic control system that causes planes to miss connections in bad weather.

"When there's weather at RDU, it takes a long time to iron out the problems," said David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, an industry group in Washington.

"The bags are late, they misconnect; sometimes the customer makes it, sometimes they don't."

RDU's busiest carrier, American Eagle, which has 49 daily departures, had the third worst record for mishandling bags. Opening new terminals at JFK in New York, at Miami and at Dallas-Fort Worth was to blame, said airline spokesman Dave Jackson.

"We had a pretty steep learning curve," he said.

"Only the airlines know for sure why their problems increased," Headley said. But Headley doubted it was a coincidence that some regional feeder carriers, including Comair and Atlantic Southeast Airlines, had double or triple the number of lost baggage reports of other airlines.

At RDU, lost and delayed bags were up 10 percent to 15 percent last year from 2004, according to First Flight Delivery Service, which delivers lost bags to their owners for most of the local airlines.

Employees who track lost bags say that in their desire for cheaper fares, some travelers set themselves up for lost bags by booking multiple carriers for a trip. With airline gates often separated by great distances, bags don't alway make the connecting flight.

But far more often, they said, problems arise when small planes reach their maximum weight and bags have to be removed to meet federal requirements. That's happening often because more people are flying and they're flying more often on smaller jets.