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Let's say you're transiting through London with checked bags. The airline refuses to short-check your luggage. You then proceed to miss the second flight, forcing them to take your bags off the airplane. The following questions arise:

  1. Is it guaranteed that the airline won't fly your bags without yourself on the plane?

  2. Can they legally force some sort of a financial penalty for skipping the second flight?

  3. Is it generally legal (as in, not a crime) to do this?

  4. Are other complications likely to arise, e.g. a long talk with the airport security to make sure you're not a terrorist who's got cold feet?

hippietrail
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JonathanReez
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3 Answers3

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  1. No. If the bag is supposed to be offloaded, mistakes happen and the bag could proceed to the destination without you.
  2. Yes. If they have it in their terms and conditions such as KLM, then the passenger may have agreed to pay this fee and therefore the airline is capable of requiring you to pay it. They may not insist on payment depending on circumstances. For example:

    ...I wanted to break my flight [from Muscat to LHR] in ams rather than fly to LHR... I was told in the ams lounge that the cost to search for my bags would be 275 euros [per bag].

  3. Yes. People's plans change all the times. Business travellers may be informed on landing that they need to be somewhere else. An illness or death may have occurred within the family. The passenger may be sick themselves. These things happen and airlines are capable of dealing with them.
  4. Possibly. You may be required to go through additional screening of yourself and your bags, but this would be highly variable.
user56reinstatemonica8
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Berwyn
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  • Would the airline demand the fee is paid before giving you the bag? – JonathanReez Jul 28 '16 at 07:58
  • @JonathanReez If it's in their Ts&Cs, then I suspect they will. Rather than send you an invoice in the forlorn hope that you'll pay it later... – Berwyn Jul 28 '16 at 08:17
  • it'd be nice to know for sure in advance. Anything useful on flyertalk? – JonathanReez Jul 28 '16 at 09:31
  • @JonathanReez http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/klm-flying-dutchman/1451281-offload-baggage-fee.html – Berwyn Jul 28 '16 at 09:58
  • I think OP's mistake there was asking for the bags before the flight departed, rather than just going to Lost&Found after the bags have been offloaded – JonathanReez Jul 28 '16 at 10:00
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    @JonathanReez You are the OP.... :) – Thomas Jul 28 '16 at 11:17
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    @Thomas I think JonathanReez is referring to the gentleman in AMS who paid 550 euro to retrieve his bags. I think I'd buy a new bag and new clothes – Berwyn Jul 28 '16 at 11:24
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    I would suspect that if the bags do make it to the final destination, the airline is under no obligation to fly them back. – DJClayworth Jul 28 '16 at 14:25
  • Re. 1, here's an example from 2008 where someone missed a connection to London while changing planes in Dallas, and their bags went on to London on the original flight and were waiting for them when they arrived. Can't see any reason why the airline would ever fly the bags back to Dallas. – user56reinstatemonica8 Jul 28 '16 at 18:45
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    @user568458 2008 is a long time ago (in transportation security years) – stannius Jul 28 '16 at 18:53
  • Another thought. From a quick search on this it seems what most airlines do with a missed connection is keep your bags and check them straight onto the next plane when the customer books a later connection, rather than requiring the stressed customer to lug them back to check-in only for them to end up the same place. It's assumed that the customer will take a later connection. I don't see why they couldn't just decline to hand the bags over: you booked to X, it's going to X, unless you pay our fee. – user56reinstatemonica8 Jul 28 '16 at 19:00
  • @user568458 I suspect they're not allowed to keep the bags if you demand them, although they could send them to X out of spite. – JonathanReez Jul 29 '16 at 00:01
  • @JonathanReez Reading this discussion, it sounds like a lot of airlines say in their terms that if you don't fly the complete route, you pay the difference for the flight you actually took. So if you "accidentally" miss your connection B->C, refuse the next B->C connection and ask for your bags because you want to stay in B after all, before giving bags they could bill you the difference between what you paid A->C and the walk-up fare for A->B (i.e. what you actually did) – user56reinstatemonica8 Jul 29 '16 at 08:21
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Is it guaranteed that the airline won't fly your bags without yourself on the plane?

Pretty much, yes. I respectfully disagree with Berwyn on this, if such a mistake would happen then people would get fired for breaching security. See my answer Why can't I travel onwards if my bag wasn't going to make the flight? here and Moyli's comment on it.

Community
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    In the London case, it is pretty much guaranteed. In general I don't think it is. In the US it's not even a requirement. Mistakes happen, a bag gets offloaded and held in the luggage system but the tag may still be attached and it might be forwarded. You can read lots of stories about this kind of thing on FT. If it didn't happen, your luggage would never get lost! – Berwyn Jul 28 '16 at 11:17
  • @Berwyn There are plenty more ways of getting your luggage lost than failing to make a connection. – David Richerby Jul 28 '16 at 11:24
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    @DavidRicherby Indeed. The question was "is it guaranteed?". I respectfully suggest it isn't guaranteed – Berwyn Jul 28 '16 at 11:25
  • @Berwyn I was disputing your claim that "If it didn't happen, your luggage would never get lost!" Whatever "it" is, there are multiple causes of luggage getting lost. Eliminating only one of those doesn't eliminate lost luggage. – David Richerby Jul 28 '16 at 11:47
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    I think you are right about the perceived security breach but it begs the question: What is the matter with (generally unaccompanied) cargo? Is it more closely examined because there is more time? – Peter - Reinstate Monica Jul 28 '16 at 12:34
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    @PeterA.Schneider This is one reason, the other being that a terrorist, unless being insider, cannot force unaccompanied cargo on a certain plane at a certain time. Even if you check your cargo with Lufthansa from Lagos to Frankfurt, it could be on Lufthansa's mixed (Pax/Cargo) 747 from Lagos to Frankfurt, or on the FedEx feeder flight from Lagos to Cairo and then on a DHL cargo plane to Leipzig and by truck to Frankfurt, or it is taken to Cologne by UPS, and/or it is stored in a warehouse somewhere for some hours. Now good luck trying to down a passenger jet with said unaccompanied cargo. – Alexander Jul 28 '16 at 12:56
  • @PeterA.Schneider The same is with security breaches: Terrorists can try to get their bag onto a plane and have it fly without them. But in the general case they will fail when doing so. Their problem is that they have one try each before they are hunted and killed or jailed for life, and they don't want to try, they want to succeed. – Alexander Jul 28 '16 at 12:58
  • Flying on United, I didn't get to the boarding gate on time due to long queues and delays at security. But my checked baggage did fly on that flight, they didn't bother to remove it. I specifically asked about this, because it surprised me that the bag would not be removed, and they said it's fine for a bag to fly without the passenger so long as it is screened by security. – wim Jul 28 '16 at 16:50
  • It's a tricky issue, "sometimes" it will be emphatically guaranteed, as chx implies ... if that makes sense! – Fattie Jul 28 '16 at 17:38
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    It varies. US domestic airlines apparently aren't required to do baggage matching and will usually happily send your bags on their way whether you're on board or not. This makes some sense, as it turns out there are enough terrorists out there who don't mind blowing themselves up along with the plane (indeed, this may be their stated goal) and the TSA instituted stronger screening of checked bags. The same doesn't apply everywhere in the world though. – Zach Lipton Jul 28 '16 at 18:46
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    Just because it is (somewhat) guaranteed that the bag won't be on the plane, that does NOT mean that it's guaranteed that the OP will be given the bag for free. – stannius Jul 28 '16 at 18:57
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    It is not at all guaranteed that the bag will be on the same plane that you are. It has happened to me that I arrived early after a transatlantic flight, and had a long connection (at EWR, I think); it was not possible to change to the earlier flight (which I could now catch - but which was full). But my bag made it onto that flight - when I arrived at my home airport, my bag was already waiting at the baggage office although the bags had not yet been offloaded from the plane. – Floris Jul 28 '16 at 19:44
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    It's not always guaranteed, see the next answer on that linked q: "Carrier will try, as much as reasonable possible, to arrange that Checked Baggage is carried on the same aircraft as the Passenger. Amongst others, for operating or security/safety reasons, the Checked Baggage may be carried on another flight... unless the applicable regulations..." - that's from KLM. A passenger can't knowingly, predictably separate themselves from their luggage, but some places, it can happen anyway (if inspections are needed, if the hold's full...) – user56reinstatemonica8 Jul 29 '16 at 08:56
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Just this summer I had a connection at ORD where for fare reasons I could have made a second leg flight before the one on which I was booked. One of my two bags went on the earlier, more expensive flight without me, while the other was inexplicably delayed until the second day following.

I would so not count on this as a gimmick for baggage retrieval.

Andrew Lazarus
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