Airlines are starting see the impact of a focus on solving baggage handling issues as they look to address one of the main causes of passenger dissatisfaction.

The annual SITA Baggage Insights Report has revealed continuing improvement with globally the number of bags mishandled continuing to decline to 6.3 per 1,000 in 2024, down from 6.9 the previous year.

Europe remains the region in which airline passengers are most likely to experience baggage issues due to legacy systems and high transit traffic, but even here the picture is improving.

The rate of mishandled bags in Europe fell to 12.3 per 1,000, an improvement of 26% on 2007, the year when SITA began keeping records and issuing its Baggage Insight Report. As recently as 2022, 15.7 bags per 1,000 were mishandled in Europe.

Although the industry is seeing improved rates of mishandled bags the overall number increased slightly from 36.1 million in 2023 to 36.2 million. Air traffic hit a record high of 5.3 billion travellers in 2024, up 8.2% year on year.

With every bag that has to be repatriated costing airlines an estimated $150, the issue is a multi-billion dollar problem, SITA estimating that the industry spends £5 billion a year reuniting passengers with their possessions.

SITA 2025 Baggage IT Insights – Key Findings

• 67% reduction in mishandling rate since 2007
• Over 61% of mishandled bags (22.2 million) were resolved in 48 hours
• Delayed bags account for 74% of mishandling incidents, tagging errors 17%, loading failures 16%, and operational issues 10%
• 42% of global airline passengers had access to real-time baggage updates (up from 38%)
• 66% of airlines now offer automated bag drop and a further 16% plan to adopt it by 2027
• 65% of airports plan to roll out biometric self-service bag drop systems by 2027
• 50% of travellers say mobile tracking would make them more confident checking in a bag

Nicole Hogg, director of baggage at SITA, said for too long addressing bag handling processes and technology was not prioritised by carriers.

But with bags one of the top three areas of dissatisfaction for flyers behind security and passport control it is enjoying renewed focus.

“It’s been part of the passenger journey that has not been modernised,” Hogg told Aviation Business News. “Baggage used to be the forgotten child, but over the last two years that has started to change. Airlines have realised they need to invest to modernise.

“This is being driven by passenger increased expectations that their bags can be dealt with like ride hailing or food delivery on Deliveroo. Plus passenger today can track their own bags with trackers like Apple AirTags.

“The key take away from this year’s report is that we are doing a great job, rates of mishandled bags are dropping, but there is still work to do.”

SITA Bag Handling – Regional Bag Mishandling Rates Data

• Europe: 12.3 bags per 1,000
• Middle East & Africa: 6.02 per 1,000
• Asia Pacific: 3.1 per 1,000
• North America: 5.5 per 1,000
• South America: 5.5 per 1,000

Although legacy technology like printed luggage labels are not expected to disappear any time soon, new technologies, driven by AI are emerging to make processes more effective and efficient.

However, Hogg said there still requires more standards and agreed regulations across operators, airlines, airports and regions to ensure there is consistency globally in the way bags are handled and repatriated.

An open approach to sharing data will also give both airlines and their passengers more real-time insights into wait times for bags to be delivered in luggage halls, whether bags in transit will make a connecting flight, and off-airp0ort luggage check-in services.

“It’s about visibility, proactiveness and real-time information. After COVID we saw that people did not have the confidence to check in bags but now you have airlines like South West charging for carry on bags.

“The technology has to be easy to implement and also and also culturally it’s how people adopt technology. It has to be easy to use. We all have mobile phones today, so it also has to be mobile.”

Last year SITA integrated Apple’s Share Item Location feature into its WorldTrace platform allowing passengers to share their Air Tag data. This has helped to halve the average time a bag is reunited with its owner to one-and-a-half days.

Other technological advances include AI identification of bags via images taken at check-in to improve repatriation and to give airlines live information about space in overhead lockers as passengers are boarding so they can manage available capacity better.

A more tech-driven, automated future appears to be coming. Hogg refers this increasingly IT-based future for baggage handling as “bagometrics”, but she says: “We are still a long way off.