How to stop airline bags from being stolen

November 11, 7:11 AMSan Diego Airport ExaminerJoel Siegfried

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The recent theft a few days ago of 1,000 bags by a Phoenix couple at Sky Harbor Airport (PHX) is disturbing. It violates our personal space, and our sense of trust and security. The San Diego Airport Examiner has queried and interviewed representatives of airport administrations, including those at San Diego County Regional Airport Authority (SDCRAA), the body which governs and operates San Diego International Airport, airline staff and general managers, and aviation consultants. In a separate article, we will report in detail on their comments and recommendations.

For now, this is a commentary based on this writer's opinions and personal experiences.

When I was younger, I worked for a commuter helicopter airline in the New York metropolitan area. It served that City's three major commercial airports, JFK, LaGuardia (LGA), and Newark (EWR), the Wall Street (JRB) and Pan Am Building (JPB) heliports, and Westchester County Airport (HPN).

CAPTION: (ABOVE LEFT) Kate Moss arriving at LAX (Photo credit - AP)

A slide show follows this article showing places around the world to lose your bags.

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CAPTION: (ABOVE RIGHT)  Lost luggage ((Photo credit - Google Images)

I worked as a ramp cargo and passenger agent, dispatcher, load control manifest handler, represented the airline at static demonstrations to members of Congress at Washington's (Reagan) National Airport (DCA), and on some weekends served as the duty officer. That meant that I was assigned the airline's only pager, and given a telephone calling card, so I didn't have to drop my own dime in a public pay phone. This was well before cell phones were invented.

CAPTION: (ABOVE LEFT) New York Airways Boeing Vertol 107 (Photo credit - Wikipedia)

It was the best job that I ever had, until I took up journalism, and I'd probably be tempted to pay someone to give me another one just like it. Some days I worked 16 hour overtime shifts, especially during the New York City transit strikes. I got to meet TV and film celebrities, arrange for them to use our VIP lounge, which also served as the flight crew break room, made calls to their wives and girl friends, advising them of arrival time, greeted passengers in the Custom's area who were connecting with our flights, escorting and expediting them through Customs, and dealt with charters, missing bags, and special problems.

CAPTION: (ABOVE RIGHT) Interior of N6682D as it prepares to depart the Pan Am Building in September, 1967 (Image credit - Wikipedia)

After work, those on my shift would go out for a beer and pizza until the early hours of the morning, discussing the day's incidents, our personal heroics in calming upset passengers, and that lady we'd like to get to know better. In the morning, during warmer weather, I'd drive to the south shore of Long Island, and go swimming in the Atlantic to clear my head. Then it was off for another 16 hour day.

To better understand these times, I have to remind you that this was long before TSA, or any form of passenger screening. While airline employees, such as myself, had official looking identification, we never had to show them to anyone, except if we wanted a 20% discount at an airport restaurant. Anyone was free to come and go to the departure gates. Sometimes they went even further, which created huge problems.

CAPTION: (ABOVE LEFT) Airline employee checks a lost bag (Photo credit - Google Images)

We had to ground one of our 25 passenger twin rotor Boeing Vertol 107 helicopters, the civilian version of the military's Chinook CH-46 helicopter, widely used in Vietnam, because a passenger had wandered out onto the tarmac, saw the parked, empty, and unguarded aircraft, and decided he wanted to pretend he was a pilot by seating himself in the cockpit, and pressing all the buttons and switches. He was arrested of course, but we had to red tag the equipment, until maintenance could inspect it.

On another occasion, a very famous TV talk show host, showed up at one of our ticket counters next to a departure gate, enraged that we would not honor his reservation, because we had over booked that flight, something that was routine policy for the airline. I won't mention his name, as he has long since passed on, but in his fury, he pulled out a handgun and slammed it on the counter, along with a few choice words. That didn't serve him well.

CAPTION: (ABOVE RIGHT) Passenger waits to check her bags at San Diego International Airport (Photo credit - Joel Siegfried)

I tell you all of this not to impress you, but to make a point. It is simply that the past is past. The Age of Innocence has long since gone, maybe from the time we were kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

We have seen people give in to temptations many times, and worse acts of terrorism, based on ideology. I can still remember traveling through a European airport in the early 1970's, and seeing a sign like the "No Parking" warnings found on streets, a red circle with a blue P in the middle and a red diagonal line through it. But at Copenhagen airport, the P was replaced by an icon of a gun.

CAPTION: (ABOVE LEFT) "The Garden of Eden" by Lucas Cranach der Ältere, a 16th century German depiction of Eden. (Image credit - Wikipedia)


There was no airport security. That would come later, in incremental stages. After the many hijacking of the 1960's and '70's, the airlines hired private security guards to hand inspect each piece of luggage. This was followed by metal detectors, portable wands, baggage x-ray scanners, more sophisticated imaging, devices that sniffed for bomb making ingredients, psychological profiling, air marshals, restricting the gates to only passengers with boarding passes, shoeless inspections, limitations on liquids, hardened cockpit doors, permission for airmen to carry handguns, and No Fly Lists.

CAPTION: (ABOVE RIGHT) Ryanair concept of future airport security passenger inspections (Image credit - Google Images)

As to baggage, not much has changed. We reported earlier on bar code scanners and RFID electronic radio frequency tracking which is 99% reliable. However, the bottom line is that your bags are still out in the open, waiting for anyone to pick them up.

Bottom line is a good phrase, because it exactly describes the problem. The airlines don't want to pay for increased baggage protection, because doing so will affect their bottom line of profitability. They would rather pay out up to $3,000 for each lost bag, the current amount approved by the ICAO for domestic flights under the Montreal Convention. For the million or so bags that permanently go missing each year, that's a whopping potential three billion dollar  liability. Of course, they're not paying that all by themselves. They have insurance companies which cover that bet. The reason they can get away with it is because the traveling public lets them. They accept this anachronistic, outdated way of doing business.

CAPTION: (ABOVE LEFT)  Baggage hall in Terminal 2 at San Diego International Airport (Photo credit - Joel Siegfried)



We say, enough! In our view, the alternatives are clear. Restrict access to the baggage claim areas to arriving passengers. Make the baggage claim area a sterile zone, as if it were gate side. If necessary, consider moving baggage retrieval to the gate areas themselves, with one way access into them by arriving passengers and airline staff, and a separate one way out to ground transportation. You can of course, return to baggage claim matching and inspection, but that would be moving backwards, and the future is ahead of us. Or, you can simply never check your bags.

CAPTION: (ABOVE RIGHT)  Baggage hall in Terminal 2 at San Diego International Airport (Photo credit - Joel Siegfried)

What do you think? We'd like to hear your views. Are you satisfied with the status quo? Have you ever had your checked baggage permanently disappear? Please share your thoughts. We'll tell you what the airlines, the airports, and the experts say in a future article.

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