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Travel Savvy: How to tag your suitcase to avoid lost luggage woes

Written by: Anne Garber

Article Overview: If it happened to me, it can certainly happen to you.

Travel Savvy: How to tag your suitcase to avoid lost luggage woes

by Anne Garber

Off you go on your long-planned holiday. You've packed the frozen salmon you picked up at Granville Island that morning in one bag -- the one that you promised your friend Michel in Paris -- and you know it's OK because your luggage will have been stowed in the hold during the flight, where temperatures are frigid.

You arrive in Amsterdam en route and run to your gate for the transfer to Paris and here's where you hit the wall. At Security, you are told your booking didn't allow enough time for your bags to also make the connecting flight (you did book through an agency, so you assumed the connection was adequate). You spend the entire flight between Amsterdam and Paris fretting about whether your salmon will survive the wait in an overheated baggage area.

So you arrive at Charles de Gaulle airport, stressed and jet-lagged at your destination, and the airline's personnel are not at all helpful or sympathetic. There's one simple question that wants answering: "Where's my luggage?"

You have heard that flying BA was risky -- the airline is currently clearing a backlog of 22,000 mishandled bags -- so you booked via Air France, which partners on this particular flight with KLM. And now -- for all your careful planning -- you're faced with the dreaded lost-suitcase scenario.

It's not a problem, though, because you've planned for this. You whip out your PDA, open your luggage-tracking software and send a coded signal to the device embedded in your suitcase.

Somewhere far, far away, the Find-it unit is activated. Within moments, the gadget's global-positioning system (GPS) has acquired three satellite signals, triangulated its exact location and transmitted it back to the PDA. A map pops up, and within 15 seconds -- faster than a weary baggage handling clerk can say "Your luggage isn't lost, sir, it's merely been mislaid" -- a flashing red dot on the screen says your bag's in Copenhagen. Great! Problem solved.

Of course, who lives this kind of fantasy life with hi-tech gadgets, anyway? Jason Bourne?

"You can set up the Find-it system on a PC or a PDA in an hour," says Jeremy Marks, director of the surveillance superstore Spycatcheronline. "It's basically a global-positioning unit and a cellphone combined." Originally designed to be attached to suspect vehicles -- if you're currently conducting an extramarital affair you might want to check for one hidden behind your bumper -- the Find-it device weighs only 90g, is smaller than a Mars bar and is ideal for tracking lost luggage.

And its applications aren't limited to the airport. "Imagine you're in a café somewhere," says Marks. "You look down and your bag has gone." I look down and my bag has indeed gone, covertly lifted by one of his staff. My wallet, my passport, my tape-recorder, my camera and my car keys are in there, but Marks isn't worried. "We'll give him five minutes," he says, booting up the computer.

The Find-it unit hidden in my bag is currently lying dormant to save battery power, but a click of the mouse awakens it. From now and for the next 12 hours it will report its position every 15 seconds. A map of the world appears on Marks's computer screen, and after giving the thief a sporting chance, he clicks the button.

The map zooms in on Europe, France, then Paris and the Louvre, and there, like something from GPS, The Movie, is a large red circle showing my bag heading north on the rue de Rivoli. Assuming I could track down a gendarme, apprehending my quarry would be un morceau de gâteau .

It's impressive, but at five thousand bucks, the Find-it device is too expensive to be practical for "normal" travelling folks. That could change, though, says Edward Zhu from his luggage factory in southern China.

"Within five years, the cost of similar technology will be about $50," he says. "And by then it will be feasible to build these systems into suitcases."

But how do airport-security agencies feel about an electronic device such as this concealed in luggage? "Our officers would need to be aware the unit was there," said the US Transport Security Administration. "As long as we were familiar with the technology, it probably wouldn't be a problem."

"Clearly the device would have to be switched off while the aircraft was in the air," says BAA, "but otherwise it would seem to be acceptable."

But will it help to know your suitcase filled with warm clothing is basking in Sydney while you're shivering in Stockholm? Probably not.

Back to our lost-bag-with-the-salmon in it, the KLM folks were quick to blame their partners, the French, and the so-called customer service person at Air France actually said to us: "The Dutch are always losing things!"

The upshot was we wasted a lot of time at the airport, but we retrieved three of our four bags, which had miraculously arrived on the plane with us. The salmon was in one of them (yay!), and the missing bag (mine, of course) was delivered to our hotel the very next day. All was well that ended well, but I must say we could have done without the added worry and grief.

How to prevent Lost Luggage:

Use durable luggage labels showing your name, flight number, destination address and telephone number. The main cause of lost luggage is the loss of the airline's barcode label.
Mark the inside of your bag with your name and mobile-phone number: if your labels are torn off, handlers will open the bag to find identifiers.

Luggage checked in late may not even make it onto the flight and will follow on later, increasing the chances of it going astray. Customize your bag using ribbons or a coloured luggage strap or tag to prevent anyone else from accidentally taking it from the carousel.

If your bag goes missing, fill in the forms before leaving the airport and do not leave without the telephone number of the handling desk, a claim number and the name of a supervisor.

List the items packed before leaving home and take a copy with you (but not in your checked luggage). It makes the compensation process much easier. Some savvy travellers photograph the contents of the bag before they close it to the same purpose.

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Article Tags: air france, anne garber, backlog, baggage area, baggage handling, charles de gaulle, charles de gaulle airport, connecting flight, copenhagen, de gaulle airport, exact location, frozen salmon, global positioning system, global positioning system gps, granville island, klm, red dot, satellite signals, suitcase, tracking software



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