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A company that sells lost airplane luggage

thehustle.co

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Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#51

Post by victorarevalo »

cpncrunch wrote: post #42
McDyver wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did. Are you saying 25m bags have absolutely no information on them? Absolutely zero?

I read the article as well, as there is no info on this at all. After some searching I did find the information in a different article about Canadian airlines: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/what-happens-to-unclaimed-lug... Air Canada and Westjet both open the bags to look for identifying information so they can contact the owner. Then they donate the bags to charity or dispose of them if they can't locate the owner.…

I use Tile for this purpose and they work well. Not as good as airtag, but I don't have an iphone.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#53

Post by itishappy »

FireBeyond wrote: post #49
itishappy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can put whatever locks you want on your bags, but the TSA can and will cut anything they can't easily open. https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2014/02/18/tsa-travel-tips-tuesday-...

I absolutely get that. But this private company is not the TSA, either.

Right, but in order to lose your bag, it has to first pass through the TSA. I doubt a bag would make it all the way Unclaimed Baggage with the locks intact.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#54

Post by dataflow »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #32
KolmogorovComp wrote: post #29

> Some say the store has an ethical duty to reunite people with their lost luggage — especially highly personal items, like jewelry inscribed with names and dates, or electronics with identifiable information. But historically, the store has maintained it has a business to run. I’m quite surprised by the opposition here, I’d assume that the high sentimental value could be converted in a much higher price than its off…

> Now would it be more ethical than not contacting them? That’s up to debate, but at least the owners would have a choice. There's the rub: luggage ends up at UnclaimedBaggage after the airline has exhausted all other avenues to try and find the owner. (this particular article doesn't focus on that aspect. Here's another I quickly found that does: https://www.afar.com/magazine/what-happens-to-airline-passen... ) Ther…

> There's the rub: luggage ends up at UnclaimedBaggage after the airline has exhausted all other avenues to try and find the owner.

> There are no contactable owners, so the ethical dilemna solves itself.

Er, that's a very... convenient excuse for absolving people of ethical responsibility. Geez, there's no contact info on it, how could I possibly reunite it with its owner?? It's not like we have any clue who's lost their bags or what those bags looked like, right??

The owners are still able to describe and recognize their bags and their contents... the fact that an airline doesn't provide adequate means to search through lost bags doesn't mean it's somehow impossible to pair some of the owners and bags correctly.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#55

Post by McDyver »

theturtletalks wrote: post #46
handoflixue wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now I'd say it's a company selling stolen goods. "Imagine this: An airline loses your checked bag. After an extensive search, customer support comes up empty-handed. They compensate you and life goes on." It seems bizarre to call this stolen goods when the airline has tried to resolve this for 90 days AND compensated you for your loss

Exactly, but the issue is that a person might be willing to pay that compensation fee for the original bag back. Some bags had valuable artifacts, a camera used by NASA, etc. I’m sure the airlines didn’t compensate for this sort of items. Regardless, the company selling this is not at fault for selling “stolen” items. They believe the airline has done its due diligence in trying to find the owner and are now reducing…

> Some say the store has an ethical duty to reunite people with their lost luggage — especially highly personal items, like jewelry inscribed with names and dates, or electronics with identifiable information.

> But historically, the store has maintained it has a business to run.

"I see this iPad or this laptop has your info, and I could contact you but hey... Tough luck"

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#56

Post by jabroni_salad »

As someone who has been in a similar space, I guarantee you over half of those luggages do have identified owners who simply aren't contactable because they will not answer the phone, check a voicemail, read their email, or open any letter addressed to them.

It takes two to tango and nobody knows how to dance.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#57

Post by plasticchris »

paxys wrote: post #50
McDyver wrote: post #31

When it was founded 50 Yeats ago _maybe_ it made sense because technology was not that advanced. Now I'd say it's a company selling stolen goods. Airlines know who is the owner of that luggage. They have the sticker with flight, booking number, they have the contact details of the owner, and most owners put a tag with their contact info on the luggage. They were hired to provide the sole service of transporting the l…

If the contents of the bag are worth $500 the airline isn't spending >$500 worth of effort to track it down and return it to its owner. It makes sense to just reimburse them and move on. Now the question is what happens to the bag floating in the ether. Option 1 is sending it to a landfill. Option 2 is cracking it open and reselling/reusing the stuff in it. There are plenty of ethical arguments in either one's favor,…

I once had my check bag lost and it arrived a couple of months later via a courier. This was in ‘08

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#58

Post by seb1204 »

cpncrunch wrote: post #42
McDyver wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did. Are you saying 25m bags have absolutely no information on them? Absolutely zero?

I read the article as well, as there is no info on this at all. After some searching I did find the information in a different article about Canadian airlines: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/what-happens-to-unclaimed-lug... Air Canada and Westjet both open the bags to look for identifying information so they can contact the owner. Then they donate the bags to charity or dispose of them if they can't locate the owner.…

Will an air tag help the airline to identify you? That would be rather bad in a privacy sense. I don't think it is easy for you to call the airline and say my bag is in this building etc please give it back to me. my point is that the airline needs to be able to contact you.

Re: A company that sells lost airplane luggage

#60

Post by paxys »

plasticchris wrote: post #57
paxys wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the contents of the bag are worth $500 the airline isn't spending >$500 worth of effort to track it down and return it to its owner. It makes sense to just reimburse them and move on. Now the question is what happens to the bag floating in the ether. Option 1 is sending it to a landfill. Option 2 is cracking it open and reselling/reusing the stuff in it. There are plenty of ethical arguments in either one's favor,…

I once had my check bag lost and it arrived a couple of months later via a courier. This was in ‘08

Okay? The article is talking about bags that weren't found in over 3 months.
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