Was Your Lost Luggage Sold at Auction?

So your missing luggage never found its way back to you? It’s possible the bag could have been auctioned away.

According to SITA, a communications company specializing in air transport, for every 1,000 airline passengers checking bags across the world in 2014, only 7.3 bags went missing. All major airlines use a system called World Tracer to try and reunite those lost bags with their owners — but one in every 3,000 lost bags never finds its way home.

“Airlines actively look for the owners for up to 100 days. After that, the bag is considered to be lost,” Nick Gates, SITA’s director, told the BBC. “By then, the airline has done everything it can … What happens to the bag depends on the country. In some countries, the luggage gets destroyed. In the U.K., the airlines tend to send them to auction.”

Some of the world’s auction houses even have a specialty in such a trade, like Tooting Greasby’s, which draws a crowd of about 150 people once a week to pay £100 so they can browse abandoned luggage and have a chance to bid. These auctions are very similar to the kind held for abandoned storage spaces — the bidders don’t get to see inside the suitcase until after it’s purchased.

Other auction houses operate under slightly different rules. At the Bristol Commercial Valuers and Auctioneers, luggage contents are sorted into lots beforehand and bidders can go through everything before sale. While some bidders attend the Bristol auctions for the thrill of collecting, bidders like Alex Fennell attend with plans of turning a profit.

“For me, this is a business,” says Fennell. “The buzz is that you can rummage through some things, the buzz of hoping to find that hidden gem in there. Sometimes you get dirty underwear.”

[Photo: iStock]