Air India has made name of its own in one more way and that is not good at all!
As per the ranking compiled by LuggageLosers.com, the airline has earned dubious distinction of having the highest rate of lost passenger luggage among global airlines.
Air India Tops Lost Luggage List – New Website Ranks Airlines by Missing Bags
The website LuggageLosers.com, created by developer Pieter Levels, ranks airlines by the number of lost bags. It was after his girlfriend lost her luggage in the Spanish low-cost airline Vueling, which has not been returned yet.
As per the website, Air India lost as many as 50,001 bags in the past month, which translates to approximately one in every 36 passengers on Air India not finding their luggage upon arrival.
Following Air India in this list are West Jet Airlines and Aer Lingus. British Airways, the UK’s national carrier, is fourth with 72,594 lost bags in the last 30 days.
9th in the list is Vueling with 17,219 lost bags over the same period, which is the very airline that triggered the creation of LuggageLosers.com.
Notably, when the website was launched on June 30, it was ranked 8th.
While expressing his frustration on social media, Levels said that “I made this because Vueling lost my gf’s suitcase 2 weeks ago and still haven’t returned it. Realizing if I had a site like this I’d never book Vueling in the first place as it’s #8 worst in losing luggage right now!”
India, apart from Air India, also tops the list of country with most number of airlines in the luggage lost list. As per the report, airlines in India lost 1 in every 72 luggage.
Methodology Used by Website for Rankings
As per the website, Levels said that the “robot scrapers scour the internet 24/7 for people talking about their lost luggage and which airlines they flew, in 100+ different languages. By cross referencing that with actual lost luggage data it estimates very closely how much luggage is constantly being lost. And yes, it takes into account airline size differences by flights and fleet size. All major airlines are tracked 24/7”.
He also highlighted the limitations as well as challenges in gathering this data, he said that “Airlines don’t publish live lost luggage data (probably for a reason). Using social media as a data source has limitations but seems to be a good proxy indicator when combined with historical lost luggage data. Probabilities and lost bags are live estimations.”
Moving back to Air India, their challenges are not limited to losing luggage but also it has been reported that passengers have raised concerns over broken seats, dirty aircraft, and malfunctioning entertainment systems.
In addition to this, in May, a “mass sick leave” protest by Air India staffers caused significant flight disruptions.
