The U.K. news­pa­per, The Telegraph, recently reported that air­lines lost 42 mil­lion items of lug­gage a YEAR in 2007. That num­ber is expected to rise to as much as 50 mil­lion by 2011. The Telegraph reported that, accord­ing to SITA, a com­pany spe­cial­iz­ing in IT solu­tions for the avi­a­tion indus­try, “The major­ity of mis­han­dling inci­dents occurred when bags were being trans­ferred from one air­craft to another. Problems also arose when air­craft left before the lug­gage was loaded on, or when the air­port code or flight num­ber was mis­read on the lug­gage tags.” (Read the full story here)

Which begs the ques­tion, what’s a trav­eler to do? Below are tips to help you avoid hav­ing your lug­gage lost and what to do if it is.

Plan for the loss

Most lost lug­gage will find its way back to its owner within 24 hours. So what do you do in the mean­time, since all your belong­ings were in that lost bag? Pack a carry-on bag with one day’s change of clothes and travel-size ver­sions of liq­uid– and gel-based essen­tial toi­letries. That way, you’re good for at least a day.

Check Your Luggage In On Time

Make sure you arrive at the air­port with plenty of time to check your lug­gage in. Don’t wait until the last minute. Any sort of delay (long lines at curb­side check-in, ran­dom secu­rity check of your bag) just increases the chances your bag won’t make your flight with you. Checking a bag in at the last minute just makes it that much more likely that your lug­gage will go astray.

Identify Your Luggage, Inside and Out

Yes, I know, you tagged your lug­gage on the out­side. How about the inside? It’s impor­tant to tag your lug­gage on the inside of the bag as well as the out­side, in the non-so-unlikely event that the out­side tag gets ripped off dur­ing the han­dling process and your bag is mis­placed. This will help to iden­tify the luggage.

Check the Tag

When the bag­gage han­dler tags your bag, either curb­side or at the counter, take a quick peek at the tag to be sure the des­ti­na­tion is cor­rect. On a recent flight out of  Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, the curb­side bag­gage han­dler actu­ally showed me the tag and asked me to con­firm the des­ti­na­tion before apply­ing it to my lug­gage. If your han­dler isn’t as accom­mo­dat­ing, be sure to check it yourself.

Keep a Record of Your Luggage

Quick, who’s the man­u­fac­turer of your lug­gage? What color is it? Describe it in a way that makes it sound any dif­fer­ent from hun­dreds of thou­sands of other pieces of lug­gage out there. It’s not easy! Many trav­el­ers, espe­cially in stress­ful sit­u­a­tions, can’t ade­quately describe their bags, the color or the man­u­fac­turer. If you don’t know what your bag looks like, how is the air­line sup­posed to find it? Take a pic­ture of your lug­gage so you’ve got a good visual record, and take the time to either mem­o­rize, or bet­ter yet, write down, the details of your lug­gage such as color, man­u­fac­turer, and any dis­tin­guish­ing marks that will help you iden­tify it.

Fill Out the Forms

You’ve arrived at your des­ti­na­tion, but it seems your lug­gage didn’t make the trip. Once you’ve waited a rea­son­able amount of time watch­ing the lug­gage caraselle go round and round, con­tact the air­line. It’s likely that your lug­gage got delayed and was put on the next flight. If that’s the case, they’ll let you know. Then you can decide if you can afford to wait at the air­port for it, or fill out all the appro­pri­ate forms and have the air­line send your lug­gage to your hotel room (or home, if you’re on the return leg of your trip).

Declare Your Valuables, Or Carry Them On

If you’ve got some­thing par­tic­u­larly valu­able in your lug­gage you should fill out a spe­cial dec­la­ra­tion form from the air­line, or bet­ter yet, pack it in your carry-on. Personally I wouldn’t trust valu­ables in checked bag­gage, but there are times when one has no choice. This is espe­cially true when trav­el­ing inter­na­tion­ally, as inter­na­tional car­ri­ers (espe­cially no frills air­lines such as RyanAir) limit their lia­bil­ity much more than domes­tic U.S. airlines.

Make a Claim

If your lug­gage is well and truly lost, you’ll need to make a claim. Domestic air­lines’ lia­bil­ity is lim­ited to $2,800. International lia­bil­ity lim­its are typ­i­cally much less. Be sure to read the airline’s fine print regard­ing lia­bil­ity. If you pur­chased your ticket via a credit card, check with the card issuer. Some insure against lost or dam­aged lug­gage. If you pur­chased addi­tional travel insur­ance, you may also be able to make a claim that way.

In addi­tion, home­own­ers and renter’s insur­ance poli­cies typ­i­cally cover your belong­ings, even while trav­el­ing. It’s worth check­ing your pol­icy should the need arise.

Make a List, Print it Twice

Should you need to make a claim, it will be much eas­ier if you have an item­ized list of the con­tents of your lug­gage. Create a pack­ing list (also help­ful when pack­ing so as not to for­get any­thing impor­tant, like that con­tact lens case, belt or tie!) and print two copies, one to leave behind and one to take with.

With these tips, you’ll min­i­mize the chances of your lug­gage going astray and increase your chances of get­ting it back if it does, or get­ting ade­quately com­pen­sated if it’s for­ever lost in the void. Now get pack­ing!

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