Theft from Domestic Carousels in Australia

[SeatBackForward]

Even international baggage collection is a bit suspect, although given that:

1) the cost of getting on the flight is probably a deterrent
2) the risk of having the bag scrutinized by customs/quarantine
3) its not a public space

The risks seem to significantly reduced

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using AustFreqFly

 

[monoccular]

My thoughts are thus....

Don't travel with gold bullion in your checked luggage
I don't want the hassle of having to be 'checked out' of an airport.
If someone wants to steal my dirty laundry, feminine products and really expensive can of hairspray...go for gold.
Use the most beat-up and cheapest set of luggage money can buy then your bag will be overlooked
Australia is already enough of a police state for my liking. I'll run the risk of having my knickers pinched in preference to yet more intrusive and ridiculous security measures.
There's always a chance that....I could get run over by a bus, followed home from a train station, have my wallet knicked and all sorts of other minor mishaps. Doesn't mean I want to live in a Nanny-state where I am overshadowed by security goons on every street corner.
I'm a grown up, I can look after my own belongings. I never put anything in checked luggage of value.

I must say I agree with just about all you have said.

We are far too controlled as it is, especially at check-in and security.

I would want to see some real data saying that theft from carousels IS in fact a significant problem before I would be happy undergoing more checks and reviews.

Interesting that nobody has personally reported any problems on this forum.

I fly maybe 80 sectors a year and have not (touch wood) experienced any problems, or heard of any complaints from fellow passengers.

Getting to the carousel as soon as practicable on arrival would seem a good starting strategum.-- it will almost always be before your bags are released.

 

[monoccular]

Even international baggage collection is a bit suspect, although given that:

1) the cost of getting on the flight is probably a deterrent
2) the risk of having the bag scrutinized by customs/quarantine
3) its not a public space

The risks seem to significantly reduced

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using AustFreqFly

I think International has all those safeguards and deterrents you mentioned.

You would want to be pretty sure that there were "worthwhile goodies" in the case, and if there were then no doubt the rightful owner would be there waiting for it.

After all, you could be unlucky and perhaps have picked up Schapelle's boogie board and be nabbed yourself.

 

[whatmeworry]

I think the cost of parking at Australian Airports would make it a expensive exercise stealing passengers luggage.

 

[here2go]

I think the cost of parking at Australian Airports would make it a expensive exercise stealing passengers luggage.

I could see theft being done quite easily from DRW if scoped out appropriately. I'm sure other terminals abutting suburbia and light commercial eg ADL would be similar. I wonder if the guys at the NT News and 'Tiser have researched this! Could be an excellent piece of scaremongering News Corp journalism.

 

[VHOEJ]

Good topic - I think domestically the number of bags seems to be decreasing but really, I think they really should do the same as international and have a barrier between the luggage and the exit. In saying that, there is nothing stopping another passenger taking a bag.

I often wonder how many times airlines don't 'lose' bags, they are actually taken off the carosel before the passenger can get there, either by accident or deliberately.

 

[EmilyHoward]

You know .. I've been thinking ... that woman who nicked 1000 bags or so. If she called Guinness World Records she could get in it.

EH

 

[oz_mark]

True, but remembering 1000 bags? No chance. The various web stories all appear to be sourced from the same no-detail source. It also seems incredible to me that someone who has stolen 1000 suitcases of personal belongings (minimum about 300 victims?) only copped a $600 fine. The story just sounds like bollocks. I am sure that if such an amazingly productive offender had been identified it would have made it into the various legal journals/case law. But I cant find any reference.

Don't know. The case was dealt with in the Magistrates Court which typically deals with simple cases.

 

[wandering_fred]

Here we are with a group of very serious people intent on airline status and flying at the front of the airplane. And these people are not going to be at the carousel waiting for their luggage to come out of that hole in the wall? :shock: This is, after all, Perth airport!

Well I suppose we were all "kettles" at one point of our traveling career. :mrgreen:

Happy wandering

Fred

 

[medhead]

Just implement SYD T3 baggage handling Australia wide. The few times I've had checked luggage there I've had to stand at the carousel for at least 20minutes before it is even turned on.

Good reason to reduce productivity, prevent theft.


Sent from the Throne

 

[juddles]

No idea, I simply gave the link which I read the story on from a couple of years ago as requested (the whole "link or it didn't happen). I never said it was original research, it was simply a link from the ABC which is usually somewhat reliable. If you think the article is inaccurate you are by all means welcome to give the ABC a call and ask them for details directly \ tear shreds off the journalist.

harvyk, I was not having a go at you, and I apologise if you took it that way. My dislike is with the journalism.

The ABC may historically be reasonably accurate, but that story was typical of most mainstream sensationalist reporting. By using minimalist detail they allow the reader to jump to conclusions and be misled. The article leads one to think that they found 1000+ bags at her house, a truly unlikely event, unless she lived in a warehouse. The 30+ bags is far more likely, but makes a far less interesting story, even if they add that she was suspected of many many more. With just a few extra lines the journalist could have given so much more info, such as where she actually stole them from (carousel, or carparks as originally reported).

Anyway, really my point is that people´s perception of the security of airports can be misled by sensationalistic media.

Has anyone on here had anything actually stolen from a carousel or know people that have? The airlines must have a bloody good idea what the incidence is of carousel theft, and surely if a thousand bags got knocked off from the carousels in Perth, they would devise a security system to prevent such mass theft.

 

[opusman]

Luckily this isn't an issue at MEL as the baggage handlers deliberately wait until they're absolutely sure everyone is standing at the carousel before they'll send a single bag out

 

[777]

harvyk, I was not having a go at you, and I apologise if you took it that way. My dislike is with the journalism.

The ABC may historically be reasonably accurate, but that story was typical of most mainstream sensationalist reporting. By using minimalist detail they allow the reader to jump to conclusions and be misled. The article leads one to think that they found 1000+ bags at her house, a truly unlikely event, unless she lived in a warehouse. The 30+ bags is far more likely, but makes a far less interesting story, even if they add that she was suspected of many many more. With just a few extra lines the journalist could have given so much more info, such as where she actually stole them from (carousel, or carparks as originally reported).

The problem is not with the story but with people's misreading of it.

Nowhere does the story say she stole a thousand BAGS. It says she was charged with stealing a thousand PEICES OF AIRPORT LUGGAGE. I.e. police found a thousand items that came from the bags counting all the socks, cameras, hats, jeans, combs, make-up, etc that were IN THE BAGS.

I would be very confident the journo did not make that number up. It has likely come from the police cataloguing the stuff they found at her house. It could have been clearer but it is not inaccurate and i suspect it comes from the language used by the prosecution.

 

[juddles]

777, surely you jest! If the reporter was in the court room they would have heard a detailed description of the offence/s and the property involved. I am confident that almost every single person who read that story title and content understood it to mean bags. If it was not the intent of the journo to mislead it would have been far more honest for them to say ¨30 bags containing 1000 items¨ or similar. Journalists are educated people well versed in the English language. The writer of that article knew exactly what they were doing, which was to make the most sensational (interesting) story out of the incident.

 

[SeatBackForward]

777, surely you jest! If the reporter was in the court room they would have heard a detailed description of the offence/s and the property involved. I am confident that almost every single person who read that story title and content understood it to mean bags. If it was not the intent of the journo to mislead it would have been far more honest for them to say ¨30 bags containing 1000 items¨ or similar. Journalists are educated people well versed in the English language. The writer of that article knew exactly what they were doing, which was to make the most sensational (interesting) story out of the incident.

Not I. I read 1000 and thought, "gee thats a lot, perhaps 1000 items from X bags"..

 

[juddles]

Not I. I read 1000 and thought, "gee thats a lot, perhaps 1000 items from X bags"..

As an AFF´er you are not indicative of the wider, less inteligent public.

 

[SeatBackForward]

As an AFF´er you are not indicative of the wider, less inteligent public.

And clap-trap journos (or more likely wannabe celebrities) use that to their advantage...

 

[jb747]

Without even considering theft, how many people accidentally head off with the wrong bag. Just watch at a carousel for a while, and it would be rare not to see multiple bags pulled off, and then replaced when people realise they have the wrong bag.

I'm also stunned by the amount of flash/expensive luggage. If ever there was a time to use something cheap and simple, it would have to be airline travel.

 

[SeatBackForward]

Without even considering theft, how many people accidentally head off with the wrong bag. Just watch at a carousel for a while, and it would be rare not to see multiple bags pulled off, and then replaced when people realise they have the wrong bag.

I'm also stunned by the amount of flash/expensive luggage. If ever there was a time to use something cheap and simple, it would have to be airline travel.

Yes its the "accidental" taking of bags that I see as a bigger concern than theft, even if you are one of the first off the plane and at the carousel early. ON flights when everyone has priority tags, who knows when your bag will come out.

 

[harvyk]

Yes its the "accidental" taking of bags that I see as a bigger concern than theft, even if you are one of the first off the plane and at the carousel early. ON flights when everyone has priority tags, who knows when your bag will come out.

There is a reason I have a fairly distinctive yellow tag on my checked bags... I remember one trip I did where I forgot to attach the yellow tag to my bag, I ended up using one of the default QF bag tags, big mistake, a big black bag, with the default QF bag tags, it looks just like 50% of the other bags on the carousel. The bag prob went around about 3 times before I realised which one was mine.