How Often Does Stuff Left on Planes Get Turned In?
 

I left a nice Bluetooth headset on board - no one's fault but mine.

10 minutes after deplaning I went back to 51B at LAX. No, I couldn't get back on and retrieve my property, I'd have to go online and fill out a form.

An hour at baggage services downstairs produced the same result.

A guy took my name and cell number but candidly admitted any actual follow-up was unlikely.

Is there any option I've overlooked other than self-flaggelation?

I would pursue the search with Delta as there are more honest people than you think. They recover an incredible amount of items each year, most go unclaimed. Would definitely followup with calls to get to talk to a real person.

More disappointed the GA didn't try to find it as the plane was still parked there. Not great customer service.

Also, for others reading this, make sure you have your name and cell number somewhere on/in computers, headphone cases. Makes it real easy to reunite lost items.

I had a Macbook power supply, with my name on it, when I was told Skyclub agents had found it and turned into Baggage Services, go unfound/unreturned.

I've left a Macbook Pro on a flight to MS that was not found that day, show up with a note "found on concourse" in ATL 3 days later.

YMMV!

I've left two items on planes in the last twelve months. Delta mailed back my Kindle very promptly, but I never saw my favorite cashmere scarf again.

Left onboard
 

I left my glasses on the a/c arriving at MSP from SEA. I realized it, went back to the gate (a/c still there) & told the agent that I had a pair of "escapee glasses". She went down the jetway and returned with my glasses. As she was handing them to me, she shook her finger at them and said "bad glasses, bad glasses"! we both had a good laugh :D

Left an Ipad on a regional flight from DCA-JFK in march. Got it back...but not for 3 weeks (and 10 days after they said it would be shipped and there within 2 days)....oh, and it had been cracked

Long story short: you've got decent odds of getting it back. But don't expect ANY helpful communication from anybody in the lost and found department. Customer service gives you the runaround, if you want a number to call, call the lost and delayed baggage number. Found that out only when I had to submit a claim for my Ipad being cracked.

What did the baggage service agent do for you?

Long story, but the short of it being they helped me file/authorize a claim with FedEx for the damages to the IPad....since FedEx was the actual shipping company, and they won't refund any claim to me unless Delta authorized it (default claims go to sender, not the receiver)...

Honestly it beats me why the lost bag department handled it and not customer service or at least a manager within customer service, but I did get a call from CS telling me to contact baggage services for help with the claim. If this really is the best department to contact for lost/found related stuff too they really ought to do a better job making that visible online i.m.o.

Airport customer service should handle identifiable (serial number required for electronics) lost items by contacting you and setting up a prepaid shipment. Items sent to the lost & found central location are handled through delta.com/lostandfound. I think your baggage service agent might have just called the airport and been the middle man.

I much prefer the system at many airports in Europe where everything gets turned in to a third-party vendor at the airport. The vendor catalogs everything in a database and retains it for a period of time before disposing of it at auction. You can check with serial numbers, descriptions, flight numbers, seat location, and the like.

You pay a fee and the vendor will ship (for a fee). But, in return, you get real service. I'm fine with it because I don't expect DL to eat the cost of my own negligence.

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Somehow those three words "third-party vendor" sends chills down my spine if that were the case in most large airports in the U.S. (LAX, New York, Detroit etc).

Better then currently. You don't know if it was turned it to the airline or airports L&F. Then if airline, is it at the airport or been shipped off.

SIN was the best. Left a pair of glasses on the plane. Scheduled to leave SIN a week later. Got to the gate and glasses were waiting for me. I hadn't even filed a claim.

Exactly, in fact if you didn't remember where you left an item, it could be somewhere in 3 lost and founds. General airport areas and concourse handled by airport lost and found, TSA checkpoint handled by TSA, good luck trying to get them to answer phone and onboard aircraft handled by the airline with issues described above.

I once left a jacket on a plane. I completed the paperwork online a couple hours later. The next day, I was back in the airport, DFW, and checked with baggage claim. They knew nothing. Three days later I was getting on a moving sidewalk in DTW and ran into one of the FAs from the flight where I left my jacket. It turned out she had found the jacket and given it to the ground crew who should have turned it into baggage claim. We called and were told the jacket had been shipped to ATL. Long story short, the jacket was never found, heck, I even checked out the store in Scottsboro, but...

A woman in ATL baggage claim told me to get labels, which I did, showing my name, phone number and email address. When they find items, they look for those. My computers, computer bag and anything else I might lose now has the information and it's sewn into every inside suit jacket and winter coat pocket so they can get in touch with me.

A few months ago I left my jacket on a SFO bound plane - I had swapped with someone else so they could sleep and forgot to grab it before I got off the plane and went landslide.

I was able to talk to someone working at the luggage desk who went back on the plane right there and grabbed it for me (there was someone else that had forgotten her wallet on the same flight as me). I don't know if it's standard procedure, but it was awesome.

I don't recall any of my co-workers ever getting anything they left back once they've gone from the airport though. Usually just a pair of headphones or something like that.