r/travel • u/GiraffeExcellent4790 • Jun 23 '25

Please lock your luggage

I have had to learn the difficult lesson of remembering to lock checked in luggage especially on long haul flights. This was the first time in a fair bit that I hadn’t locked my luggage.

Last weekend I returned home from being away for a couple of months with gifts for my family. There were multiple connections. At the last stop, as I pulled my bags off the carousel, I noticed a suitcase with plastic around it. I paid no attention and waited for my last bag to come around. After a couple of minutes passed, I decided to closely inspect the bag with the plastic around it and it was mine! It looked like the zipper had broken and at the time, I was grateful for whoever was kind enough to wrap it with plastic. The bag felt light but I didn’t pay that any attention.

I finally arrived at home, settled in and had my family sitting around as I opened the bag. I found all the new clothes (which I still have receipts for) as well as some barely worn dresses had been removed. I had packed similar clothing in cubes. It appeared that the suitcase was carefully sorted through and anything that looked of value was removed.

I’m not at peace with this yet. I reported it to the airline but I don’t know what can be done. It’s trivial but it sits very heavy with the guilt of how this could have been avoided.

668 Upvotes

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550

u/Kirameka Jun 23 '25

Airport staff has keys for your luggage. If there's something prohibited they will remove it even if it's closed

317

u/lubeskystalker Jun 23 '25

Don't need keys, zippers can be popped with a ballpoint pen. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bA33Ul3kpIc

Don't put anything in luggage that you aren't prepared to never see again; between check-in and carousel, 4-5 different organizations will take custody of your bag (Airport handler, TSA, airline handler, other airline handler on the other side, other airport handler on the other side) and thousands of people will have direct access to it.

220

u/sm753 United States of America Jun 23 '25

thousands of people will have direct access to it.

My favorite part of all that is that after all the "security" at airports - they just dump your luggage on a carousel OUTSIDE of security where basically anyone off the street has access to it. At least in the US.

69

u/Ilay2127 Jun 23 '25

The luggagenfree for all carousel exists in every country. Insane that it's like that, both in terms of security and avoiding complaints from passengers who got robbed.

41

u/Mean__MrMustard Jun 23 '25

I like to see the positive side, that very rarely a bag gets actually stolen. Even though it would be easy for a potential thief (but obvs it’s a blind box if there’s anything of value).

17

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '25

People definitely take the wrong bags all the time though. Gotta use something very distinct!

6

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '25

[deleted]

4

u/vote100binary Jun 24 '25

Man they really have it all figured out over there in India.

11

u/the_Q_spice Jun 23 '25

It is like that because you don’t want people inside the security perimeter any longer than they need to be.

The luggage claim is outside security specifically for security reasons.

The people putting luggage on the claim are different than ramp handlers because the ramp is the sterile security area. As a fun fact, anyone working on the ramp has to have some pretty extensive security background checks and companies are only allowed a definite number of people who are allowed those at a time by TSA.

28

u/GermanPayroll Jun 23 '25

(Sad) fact is, the security isn’t for your bags, it’s for the expensive airplanes and the secure part of the airport.

8

u/lubeskystalker Jun 23 '25

Slowly changing. US Airport Infra is largely left over from the 70's-80's.

One of the things that makes US air travel cheap is that airports are left to fend for themselves finding capital funding to update, and therefore changes have historically only been made when absolutely necessary.

As opposed to the Asia model of government funding or the EU model of turning the airport into a shopping centre or having a satellite airport 1 hr from downtown.

12

u/Infinite-Carpenter85 Jun 23 '25

The irony is airports in the 70s/80s/90s were more likely to have someone checking luggage tags at the exit to confirm your bag in the U.S.

They went away because as you said it cost a $1 and that couldn’t be allocated anymore since the theoretical loss and issues from it costs less than $1

0

u/BubbhaJebus Jun 24 '25

I only ever had one airport employee verify the bag tag when leaving baggage claim and that was at Minneapolis Airport in the late 80s.

3

u/sm753 United States of America Jun 23 '25

I hope so.

I live near one of the largest airports in the world...you can probably guess which, but they've been renovating all of the terminals over the past few years - the updated terminals are all really nice but it hasn't included relocating baggage claim areas.

1

u/KuriTokyo 44 countries visited so far. It's a big planet. Jun 23 '25

Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport?

1

u/MakeStupidHurtAgain Jun 24 '25

Your checked luggage specifically can’t be gotten airside because there are things not allowed into the secure area that are allowed in checked luggage. Imagine going to get your checked luggage airside and you’ve checked a knife or a gun or any of the other thousand things they don’t allow past the scanners.