Dear Tripped Up,
Last November, a $400 transport chair belonging to my 86-year-old mom went missing after our KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kennedy Airport. On prior flights in our itinerary, the airline had her chair — a lighter, more transportable version of a wheelchair that she uses because she can’t walk longer distances — waiting for us on the jet bridge. But when we arrived in New York, it wasn’t there. The ground crew told us it would be at baggage claim. When it did not appear on the carousel (and the AirTag we had sewn into it showed its last location as Amsterdam), we asked staff from Delta, which apparently handles KLM’s baggage services at J.F.K., for help. They scanned our claim ticket and told us the wheelchair had indeed arrived, but after a search they could not find it. We filed a claim and went home. The next day, the AirTag showed the chair about seven miles from the airport, at an address that on Google Street View appeared to be a medical supply store. Days later, it had settled into what looked like a medical facility. After days of frustrating back-and-forth with KLM and Delta, we were eventually told we needed to file a police report, which we did, to no avail. To date, no one has accepted accountability for the lost chair. Can you help? Josh, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Dear Josh,
I bet most travelers who still check bags — a shrinking group I remain a stubborn part of — have all wondered what, exactly, is stopping someone from taking our stuff from the baggage carousel.
U.S. airlines years ago abandoned the practice of checking claim tickets at terminal exits. So, aside from security cameras and personnel, there doesn’t appear to be much to stop strangers from making off with our possessions, either accidentally or maliciously.
So who is responsible for a checked item from the moment it reaches the baggage claim area until the moment its owner picks it up?
Not us, said KLM. In an email, Elvira van der Vis, a spokeswoman for the airline, told me that what happened to you and your mother was “very unfortunate.” But “our responsibility for baggage ends when it is placed at the passenger’s disposal on the carousel at the destination.”
“As an exception,” she continued, the airline will reimburse you for the value of the chair. That is good news for you, though not for future passengers. You told me KLM has since been in touch to ask for a receipt for the chair, which you don’t have; I intervened again and was told a credit card statement would suffice. Keep me up-to-date.
An aside before we dive into the thorny baggage claim issue: There is little question that KLM — which is a SkyTeam partner of Delta — erred in not returning the chair to your mother on the jet bridge. U.S. federal regulations require airlines to return wheelchairs and other mobility devices to passengers “as close as possible to the door of the aircraft.”
But let’s get back to who is responsible for the chair’s disappearance. I asked seven major U.S. carriers for their take and was underwhelmed by the responses. Three declined to comment, and three hemmed, hawed or referred me to their contracts of carriage. A spokeswoman for American gave the only clear response, writing by email that the airline accepts liability “until the bag is returned to the customer.”
Aren’t there rules on checked items like bags and chairs somewhere? If so, they are hard to pin down. I read through those seven major U.S. airlines’ contracts of carriage (fun!) and found nearly nothing, except for Hawaiian Airlines’, which explicitly says it will “deliver your bag to the baggage claim area,” and United Airlines’, which says it is “the passenger’s responsibility to claim the checked baggage at the baggage claim area, and UA assumes no obligation to verify the identity of the bearer at the destination airport.”
The Montreal Convention, which covers liability for baggage on most international flights, says only that airlines are responsible while bags are “in the charge of the carrier.” The U.S. Transportation Department’s rules on domestic flights use similar terms, but neither defines when that duty ends.
A spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Kennedy Airport, declined to comment for this article. But a spokesman for the Chicago Department of Aviation, which oversees Chicago O’Hare and Midway International Airports, did define it. “Once the bag has been transferred from the aircraft and placed onto the carousel or delivered to an oversized baggage area,” wrote Kevin Bargnes, the department’s director of communications, “it remains the airline’s responsibility to ensure proper delivery to the passenger.” He noted that the airports work with and support the airlines to provide a safe environment, including with police patrols and security cameras.
Would it be worth returning to the system used in the past (and still, in some countries) in which someone checks passengers’ bags against their claim tickets?
Probably not — who wants yet another line to stand in on your way out of the airport? Plus, there are relatively few reports of such thefts. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport got some bad publicity after a sharp increase in reported cases in 2022, but even that year’s 477 incidents affected a minuscule percentage of the 30 million or so bags that came through the airport that year, according to a Kassie McKnight-Xi, a spokeswoman for the Port of Seattle, which runs the airport.
And yet every time I arrive in baggage claim to pick up my luggage, a slight panic sets in if the bags have already begun to arrive. Is someone going to make off with my dirty clothes and half-used toiletries?
It finally happened last year, when another passenger on my flight mistakenly took my fire red Samsonite, apparently ignoring the name and contact information on an attached label. In that case, Delta came through. A no-nonsense employee scanned the just-as-red Samsonite that was left behind and called the owner. When the person initially refused to come back to the airport right away, she admonished her, noting that I had important equipment in the suitcase that I needed urgently. It was a slight exaggeration, but it worked, and I was delayed only around an hour.
Travelers can take some measures to protect their luggage. “Hurry to bag claim after the flight arrives, use a tracking device, and try to put something on the bag that makes it stand out from other bags,” said Ms. McKnight-Xi of the Port of Seattle. And anyone on team carry-on, take note: Airlines explicitly state they are not responsible for carry-on luggage or items that disappear during a flight, presumably from overhead bins as you sleep a few rows away.
There is one last piece of disappointing news, at least for true-crime fans: The mystery of what happened to the chair remains unsolved. Google Street View shows a business called Universal Brace Support Inc. at the spot the AirTag placed the chair, but that image was from 2022. The same storefront today houses Cookies N’ Cream, a delicious-looking cookie shop, where the manager, Kayla Munnelly, told me over the phone that she did not recall any customers entering the store last November in a suspicious transport chair.
If you need advice about a best-laid travel plan that went awry, send an email to [email protected].
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Seth Kugel is the columnist for “Tripped Up,” an advice column that helps readers navigate the often confusing world of travel.
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