My wife recently had her bags lost by Turkish. Long story short a passenger sent her a photo of an airside storeroom at Tel Aviv airport with between 1-2,000 bags being ignored. She marched in and got hers, she could have taken anyones no one cared and no one checked! Turkish know about it and don't seem interested in doing anything about it. She followed all the Turkish processes, forms etc and was stonewalled for almost three weeks before she got her bags back herself. They continue to stonewall.

The Montreal convention governs compensation, see link below. The relevant clause is: In the carriage of baggage, the liability of the carrier in the case of destruction, loss, damage or delay is limited to 1 000 Special Drawing Rights for each passenger. 1,000 SDR's are about USD 1300.

In the case of delay you are entitled to reimbursement of actual and reasonable expenses upto SDR1,000 keep receipts and claim within 21 days. In the case of damage you must claim within 7 days or for loss or delay within 21 days. Clearly getting a claim number immediately is best. The convention states if not returned within 21 days your baggage is considered is lost and can be claimed on.

Full text below:

https://www.iata.org/contentassets/f...-full-text.pdf