Airlines Mishandled 2.8 Million Bags In 2023, These Were The Worst Offenders

Photo: Mario Tama (Getty Images)

It would be easy to presume that airlines would spare no expense to ensure that passengers’ luggage meets them at their destination, considering how lucrative the attached fees are. Airlines globally made more than $29 billion in checked bag fees in 2022. However, frequent flyers are well aware that bags can be lost or damaged while in a carrier’s custody.

The numbers are quite staggering. Every U.S. airline with more than 0.5 percent of total domestic revenue is requested to report its statistics monthly to the Department of Transportation. From that data, 2,801,968 bags were reported mishandled in 2023. Mishandled is a catch-all synonym for lost, damaged, delayed, and/or pilfered.

The USDOT uses the number of bags mishandled per 100 bags enplaned as the measure to compare airlines fairly. I’ll use the initialism ‘BMPH’ to avoid constantly using ‘bags mishandled per hundred.’ For example, 0.58 BMPH is the national average with 485,919,932 bags being enplaned in 2023. Here’s how the figures break down on an airline-by-airline basis: