I would have to agree when i say that its just a few isolated incidents out of millions of bags handled a year. All in all, a good job is done. It is tougher then you think to coordinate that much luggage to transfer to destinations, never mind throwing in cancellations and the odd snow storm to throw things off. To cover a few of the items mentioned...

When luggage is checked in 6 hours before. Sometimes the specific flight you are travelling on may not be set up as of yet, and the bag gets placed aside until the flight is ready to load baggage. During scences of caos, which do happen when you have 2 767's loading in short order, things get misplaced.


If a flight is cancelled, it is standard policy to return all the bags to the belt. However, if the flight is in transfer, ie to NRT, alot of the bags come in from south amercia, or PVG through YVR, the bags are in bond, and cannot be touched, even if there is only one bag in that containor coming from that destination..

I hope that answers some of your questions. I deal with this every day.