Airlines should put radio-frequency readers on luggage

Tuesday, November 21, 2006
As if flying were not enough of a hassle, the federal Department of Transportation is reporting dramatic increases in the percentage of lost luggage. In August, the problem was 33 percent worse than a year earlier; in September, a whopping 92 percent worse, according to The New York Times.

Actually, the airlines were doing well until Aug. 10, when Britain and America foiled an alleged plot to blow up planes, spurring a crackdown on common liquids carried aboard. That led to a 25 percent increase in checked bags, which clearly stressed the system.

Cost-cutting by airlines that seem to be on the brink of bankruptcy may have made matters worse. But that may be a false economy, since it costs airlines $2.5 billion a year to track down missing luggage and reunite it with customers, many of them peeved.

As a result, passengers were left to scramble for the clothes they needed for work or vacations. About 200,000 bags a year _ less than 1 percent of the total _ are never recovered.

It seems time for airlines to join the modern age, and put radio-frequency readers on outgoing luggage, making it easy to determine where it is. Package deliverers have used that technology for years.

Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport, for one, has decided to go forward with that technology without waiting for the airlines to join the modern era.

Others suggest Zen meditation: An acceptance that travel will always be a hassle, prone to imperfection, that requires calm about life's inconveniences.

Probably a combination of the two approaches makes the most sense.