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Osaka: Kansai Airport proud to have never lost single piece of luggage (2024)

japannews.yomiuri.co.jp

11–20 of 113 posts

Re: Osaka: Kansai Airport proud to have never lost single piece of luggage (2024)

#11
post #5

Headline's a bit misleading. They've never permanently lost a bag, and well done to them for that, but they've certainly lost them for periods of time. Just eventually found them.

Permanent losses are pretty uncommon in general. Good for them for minimizing but having bags on the next flight or delayed for a couple/three days is way more common. Probably would have to be stolen which is rare, especially in Japan, I assume or end up in some weird location without a scan.

Was flying into Narita once and I had checked luggage in part because I was carrying an award for a Japanese customer. I was sort of given a "we'll get back to you sooner or later." At which point I explained the situation to a supervisor I think and was much fluttering around and got the bag the next day.

Re: Osaka: Kansai Airport proud to have never lost single piece of luggage (2024)

#12
post #5

Headline's a bit misleading. They've never permanently lost a bag, and well done to them for that, but they've certainly lost them for periods of time. Just eventually found them.

yeah, I've seen this being tossed around, but they definitely lost MY BAGS. Eventually I got them, but they were lost for 5 days or so.

Re: Osaka: Kansai Airport proud to have never lost single piece of luggage (2024)

#15
I once flew with ANA to Tokyo/Haneda in First with a rewards-paid ticket for crazy cheap. When I got there and picked up my luggage there was a tag on it, asking me to go to some specific desk. I did. The luggage was a bit janky, but that happens.

They very seriously apologized for breaking my bag. They asked me how much it had cost. I said "around $40, it was just something cheap". A minute later I was sort of ceremoniously handed an envelope with japanese yen notes worth that much.

Re: Osaka: Kansai Airport proud to have never lost single piece of luggage (2024)

#16
> In early December, a 35-year-old passenger from Tanzania was impressed to see that all the handles of the suitcases on the conveyor belt in the baggage claim area were facing the passengers.

> After the luggage is unloaded and collected in the cargo handling area upon arrival at the airport, ground support personnel manually align the handles of the bags and place them on the conveyor belt.

That's a level of attention to detail that we should be striving for in everything we build.

Re: Osaka: Kansai Airport proud to have never lost single piece of luggage (2024)

#17

How is this stat even useful?

It sets a verified lower bound on baggage loss. An achieveable ideal that other airports should aspire to.

Lots of orgs claim to aspire to 5 nines of uptime but can barely manage 2 nines. Kansai airport with an average of about 17 million pax/yr [0] hasn't lost any luggage. Losing one item out of, say, 10 million items a year, would be 7 nines.

[0] https://www.kansai-airports.co.jp/en/business/in-figures/

Re: Osaka: Kansai Airport proud to have never lost single piece of luggage (2024)

#18
post #5

Headline's a bit misleading. They've never permanently lost a bag, and well done to them for that, but they've certainly lost them for periods of time. Just eventually found them.

yeah, I've seen this being tossed around, but they definitely lost MY BAGS. Eventually I got them, but they were lost for 5 days or so.

And that's not a permanent loss. It may screw up your trip to a greater or lesser degree but I try to build in buffers at least for a shorter delay when I can. I have also had a few multi-day delays--on of which just caught my guided hiking trip with like an hour to spare. And I had already bought a new duffle bag worth of stuff as best I could.

Re: Osaka: Kansai Airport proud to have never lost single piece of luggage (2024)

#20
post #16

> In early December, a 35-year-old passenger from Tanzania was impressed to see that all the handles of the suitcases on the conveyor belt in the baggage claim area were facing the passengers. > After the luggage is unloaded and collected in the cargo handling area upon arrival at the airport, ground support personnel manually align the handles of the bags and place them on the conveyor belt. That's a level of attent…

I think it also highlights something: better things are possible.

Zero lost suitcases doesn't require magic to achieve. It just requires enough workers or enough time to make sure each worker is able to do their job successfully. Unfortunately financial and time constraints mean that very often there aren't enough workers or enough time, and some passengers suffer.

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