Denis: Missing bags a lost cause

Mar 20 2009 By Denis Kilcommons

DID you hear about the businessman who was making yet another trip to a far flung corner of the globe?

He checked in three suitcases and told the attendant:"I’d like to send one to Hong Kong, one to Chicago and the other to Durban."

The young woman was a little confused and said: "I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t do that."

"Why not?" said the businessman. "You did last time."

Yes, the old jokes are the best except that travelling by aeroplane with suitcases is becoming a risky business and lost luggage is no longer a joke.

A report by the UK’s Air Transport Users Council says the world’s airlines irretrievably lost more than one million bags in 2007 alone

That means gone forever. That means one lost piece of luggage for every 2,000 passengers.

In the same year, 42 million pieces of luggage were mishandled worldwide. That means went to the wrong place and were finally delivered on the last day of your two weeks in Majorca. Or were returned to your home three weeks later via Bangkok and all ports East. Or they were damaged in transit.

And these shocking figures are from before British Airways opened Terminal Five with such disastrous results.