Ok so I almost never check bags. In fact I only check bags when there is no possible way for me to cram all my junk into the overhead. Tonight I had a simple flight from IAH to RDU on Continental 1850, I was in the position of having to check my bags so I did. When I get to RDU one of the bags doesn't make it. This of course is something everyone faces so no whining here.

When I went to file the lost bag report I was told that they would look for it and then get back to me. I asked, "Gee, can't you tell me where the bag is?" I mean they have these nifty barcodes on them. I was told that no, they could not tell where the baggage is at any given time, that they don't really use the barcode readers for that.

So my question is simple, why don't the airlines have the technology to track all of the bags? I know it seems like a big job, but really how bad could it be? Look at Fexex, UPS, heck even the US post office. They all seem to be able to lick this thorny problem.

Scott

It sounds like it should be simple enough. All of the basic infastructure they need is already there, you would think they would only need new software to track the luggage. Why they haven't done it yet is beyond me, certainly annual lost baggage payouts aren't cheap.

No, not cheap at all, they of course are very gracious and nice, the lady at the elite desk authorized me to go out and buy $250 worth of stuff if it doesn't show up tonight, but what a pain.

Actually the bags do get scanned as they are both loaded and unloaded at the hubs. I don't know how many of the CO outstations they scan the bags at.

The reason the agent at RDU probably couldn't tell you for sure where the bag was at that point was that no message on the status of the bag had been put into the computer system yet, and the bag probably hadn't been loaded on a plane yet, so it hadn't been scanned. In my experience, once you report the bag missing they quickly initiate a search, and often within an hour I've had CO call me back with an estimated time of arrival.

Good luck with the missing bag. I know it's frustrating, but flying CO at least 40-45 weeks a year, and checking bags virtually every time, I've only had a baggage issue with CO three times in my life, and in all three cases, the bag was delivered to me in less than 12 hours.