Theft from Domestic Carousels in Australia

[juddles]

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.

With the abundance these days of pink ribbons on black bags, I have gone the whole way - I use some multi-coloured Peruvian ribbon on a purple bag. Havent come across another one yet, but it will haappen

 

[UP4014]

I was waiting at Canberra for my bag to arrive, there is a bloke standing on the other side of the carousel and I think not much of it. The place is nearly empty.

I watch my bag come out and he helps himself and starts walking for the door, I chase him and grab it and yell something. He apologises, tells me he has the wrong bag and returns to the carousel. He was in his 50's maybe.

Suggested the cops keep an eye on him as I'm leaving.

I think much better security needed at baggage claim areas in Australia.

Matt

 

[drewbles]

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

This is what we call in our industry 'security through obscurity'. Very good point sir!

The OP's question also makes me wonder about people who frequently say "I just pop into the lounge on arrival for a coffee or a quick bite to eat before I head to the baggage carousel to collect my bag". Personally, on the very odd occasion I do check luggage, I want to be first there, as close to the point of egress as possible (of the bag onto the carousel) to ensure no one 'snags' my bag. Admittedly I don't recall the last time I checked a bag on a domestic flight, but I still do on international as well. "Many bags look alike" as they say, and whilst I ensure my bags are not the standard 'black samsonite' type, I still don't want to risk it (even if it's just full of dirty clothes; they're *my* clothes and I spent good cash on buying them, usually from the place I just came from so they're pretty much only worn once).

 

[777]

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.

Hmmm. I read it as what it says: A thousand items stolen from airport luggage. I'd argue that you actually have to really try hard to read it as a thousand bags.

 

[SeatBackForward]

Besides, if you *can* steal items from 1000 bags, you'd be working for the US TSA by now.

 

[harvyk]

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

Except if it's actually done by two people, one person as a driver who will drop a person off, and another person to actually do the stealing. Nothing unusual about someone been dropped off or picked up at the airport (certainly wouldn't raise eyebrows), all the driver would need to do is a few laps of some nearby streets, and would mean that the person doing the stealing could easily walk out the front door and hope into a car before the rightful owner of the bag could see their bag disappearing.

Would be very easy to blend into the crowd like that and highly unlikely that anyone would notice, and of course you can also feign innocence \ misunderstanding \ a complete lie if you did get caught.

"Wasn't this the carousel for QF405? No? Sorry my mistake, sorry about that, it's just that bag looked very similar to my partners."

 

[oz_mark]

I think much better security needed at baggage claim areas in Australia.

The question that really needs to be asked, is how big of a problem is it? Is it a big enough problem that needs resources thrown at it?

 

[SeatBackForward]

The question that really needs to be asked, is how big of a problem is it? Is it a big enough problem that needs resources thrown at it?

Thats not being proactive or how you manage risks.

 

[juddles]

... I read it as what it says: A thousand items stolen from airport luggage.....

I havent found that link. The ABC one says ¨stealing more than 1000 pieces of airport luggage¨.

...
I think much better security needed at baggage claim areas in Australia....

Is it a case of the solution costing the airlines more than just paying for the problem? IE it is cheaper for them to pay for the occassional lost/stolen bag, than having better security?

 

[SeatBackForward]

I havent found that link. The ABC one says ¨stealing more than 1000 pieces of airport luggage¨.



Is it a case of the solution costing the airlines more than just paying for the problem? IE it is cheaper for them to pay for the occassional lost/stolen bag, than having better security?

The security solution is easy - just remove the automatic door sensors that point outside the departures terminal.

 

[oz_mark]

Thats not being proactive or how you manage risks.

I would be quite surprised if a risk analysis of the baggage reclaim area had not already been made, multiple times. The airlines/airports would have a pretty good idea of how big the problem is, what it is costing them, how much it would cost to introduce tighter controls etc etc.

 

[here2go]

Thats not being proactive or how you manage risks.

Without statistics risk analysis or correction is probably difficult. IATA are working on standardisation of baggage handling through the Baggage Improvement Program, which would probably then allow for statistics on theft to be collated by isolating the airline issues from the equation.

 

[Fantic125]

Last time I went through Mumbai Int. terminal they checked your bag tag to your luggage receipt as you left the carousel area. It didn't slow the exit process that much.

I must admit I've picked up the wrong bag from SYD Int departures and it wasn't till I got home in ADL and went to open it that I realised it wasn't mine. (It was after a 7 day trip to the US, with 8 flights during that time so I was fairly tired. That's my excuse anyway.......)

The surprising thing was that it's a well travelled bright red Samsonite Aero with quite a number of destination stickers & HKIA stickers all over it, and the bag I picked up was almost exactly the same. When I took it back to ADL airport that afternoon to change it over for mine even the people at the luggage counter had difficulty telling them apart, and almost gave me back the other persons bag.

I make sure I check much more diligently now.

 

[SeatBackForward]

Last time I went through Mumbai Int. terminal they checked your bag tag to your luggage receipt as you left the carousel area. It didn't slow the exit process that much.

I must admit I've picked up the wrong bag from SYD Int departures and it wasn't till I got home in ADL and went to open it that I realised it wasn't mine. (It was after a 7 day trip to the US, with 8 flights during that time so I was fairly tired. That's my excuse anyway.......)

The surprising thing was that it's a well travelled bright red Samsonite Aero with quite a number of destination stickers & HKIA stickers all over it, and the bag I picked up was almost exactly the same. When I took it back to ADL airport that afternoon to change it over for mine even the people at the luggage counter had difficulty telling them apart, and almost gave me back the other persons bag.

I make sure I check much more diligently now.

See now thats interesting. So the other person - the owner of the bag you took with you, did two things
1) Realise that their bag wasn't on the carousel
2) Had the foresight to take the "similar" bag to the baggage counter

They had good faith that you would return their bag. if you didn't return their bag, or they had simply left a note with the baggage desk that their's was missing, the story would be quite different.

 

[777]

I havent found that link. The ABC one says ¨stealing more than 1000 pieces of airport luggage¨.

Yes, so presumedly when you travel and they weigh your luggage you insist that they only weigh the empty bag and not the other items as they are not counted as luggage? Good luck with applying your definition in the real world!

 

[juddles]

??????????

777, I am not sure I understand your post. Surely any traveller would agree that as a general rule a ¨piece of luggage¨ is a bag or similar unit. What do you mean about weighing only the bag?? Many airlines actually use the term ¨piece¨ as their definition. IMHO ¨piece of luggage¨ is more internationally understood and defined as a ¨bag¨ than the term ¨bag¨ itself.

 

[Fantic125]

See now thats interesting. So the other person - the owner of the bag you took with you, did two things
1) Realise that their bag wasn't on the carousel
2) Had the foresight to take the "similar" bag to the baggage counter

They had good faith that you would return their bag. if you didn't return their bag, or they had simply left a note with the baggage desk that their's was missing, the story would be quite different.

Yes, thankfully they recognised the similarity of the cases also and made the assumption that their bag had been taken by mistake and took it to the baggage counter in SYD Int, who then sent it onward to ADL. The person who owned the other bag luckily was returning home to Sydney after a trip, so it wasn't a big issue for them. Once I swapped the bags over in ADL, QF were able to get it to the owner that afternoon.

 

[seanpodge]

Like jb747 said, I'd say that people mistaking someone else's bag for theirs and walking off with it would be a much bigger issue than deliberate theft. For this reason, I never buy black coloured luggage and I have a couple of colourful (red, green and yellow) ribbons tied to the handles of the bag so it stands out. Mainly this is less for my convenience and more so that other people don't mistake my bag for their bag.

 

[Sprucegoose]

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

And that includes the aged and disabled!

 

[k_sheep]

I have a bright blue bag with a big green sheep tag on it, or a red/black backpack with a yellow kangaroo tag and a stuffed pink hippo on it. Good luck trying to pretend they're yours