After a long flight, the last thing anyone wants is for their suitcase to never show up on the carousel. And there are some airports where your luggage is much more likely to go missing than others.
AirAdvisor studied 53 airports worldwide, looking at the number of annual passengers to the airport, the average distance from the gate (in minutes), Google searches for ‘lost luggage’, poor Yelp reviews and the Google rating for the airports.
The ten airports where your baggage is most likely to get lost are revealed below. And you may be safer locking up your suitcase or just travelling with hand luggage when flying to these destinations.
At five is Frankfurt am Main International Airport. With 61,600,000 passengers travelling through the Germany airport a year, and 3,170 Google searches for lost luggage, Frankfurt’s main airport is the fifth most likely airport for suitcases to go missing.
The airport also has 30 poor reviews on Yelp, plus a relatively low Google rating of 3.9. And with the average walking distance from the gate to baggage reclaim taking 18 minutes, there’s quite a lot of time for someone to swipe your bag from the carousel.
On number four is Istanbul Airport. Turkey’s capital city has a whopping 79,900,000 passengers through its airport every year, and it’s the fourth most likely airport for your bag to get lost.
There are 3,340 searches for lost luggage annually, plus 22 poor airport reviews. The airport, as a whole, has a relatively good rating of 4.4.
But, with an average walking distance of 24 minutes, there’s ample time for a bag to go missing off the carousel.
At number three is Dubai International Airport. Dubai International had the highest passenger volume of any airport in the survey.
So, while it had over 5,000 Google searches for lost luggage and 37 poor Yelp reviews, the airport also has upward of 92 thousand passengers passing through its gates each year.
Plus, with a 20-minute hike through the airport to the baggage reclaim area, thieves have ample time to take off with your belongings. Dubai came in third place.
In the second position is the Charles de Gaulle International Airport. Paris’ airport had 44 unfavourable Yelp reviews, the most of all the airports in the survey.
It takes 26 minutes to walk through the airport to the baggage reclaim area, making it the longest in the group.
If you couple this with the fact that the annual passenger volume is the fourth largest of the airports studied, it’s clear how lawless the baggage hall will likely be. But it’s not the most likely place for luggage to go missing.
The riskiest for your luggage is the London Heathrow Airport. Heathrow might not be as big as other airports, in terms of actual size or passenger volume.
However, it outranks all the others regarding the number of Google searches for lost luggage.
To put this in perspective, Heathrow had 14,840 more Google searches on the subject than Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport, which had the second most in the survey.
It’s best to have your wits about you if you’re flying to the London airport.
