What Really Happens to Your Luggage on a Flight

Once you check your bag at the airport do you know what really happens to that bag? If you have a connecting flight, how exactly does the bag make it from one plane to another? It might just surprise you to find out that your bag probably does more traveling than you do on your trip.

Carts And Belts Do A Lot Of The Work

Many bags hardly get handled by actual people. They go down quite a few belts before they get transported over to a cart or two or three! In some instances, they will go into a large container and be transported over to the plane so that they get on the plane faster. Before your bag even gets on the plane it will have to go through security screening. This ensures that there aren’t any dangerous items in it that could harm passengers or even the plane. Once the bag is in the cargo holder, it gets pressurized. After your flight, it goes through basically the same process, only in reverse and eventually makes its way to baggage claim in order for you to retrieve it.

The Process Is A Little Different For Connecting Flights

When you land at the airport and wait for your connecting flight, your bag is still doing some traveling around. It goes through a central processing facility. It is then loaded onto a cart and taken over to the next airline that you will be traveling on. In instances where this process needs to be speeded up because a connecting flight is leaving soon, the bag is transferred on the ramp and sent over by a baggage cart.

How Is All Of This Possible

For many airlines they use a computerized tagging system to keep track of these bags and to determine where they need to go and when. For passengers that are concerned that their luggage will be lost in this process, they can download an app where they can monitor the progress of their luggage. While they can’t do much from the plane if their luggage doesn’t make it onboard the correct flight, at least they will know where it actually went.

The Future Of Checked Luggage

New ID tags will make it possible to easily identify each bag. These tags will greatly reduce the number of bags that are lost or placed on the wrong flight. This may assure passengers that are leery of checking their bags that their luggage will make it to the right place.

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