It’s everyone’s worst nightmare.
You deboard your flight in a foreign country only to realize your luggage is lost.
Will you get it back? What course of action should you take next? And who is held responsible for the delays, inconvenience, and the potential loss of property?
Unfortunately, there’s no clear answer.
Worst of all, even if you’ve taken the advice of experts and opted for luggage with a geo-locator, you still might not be able to get your suitcase back.
That’s what happened to Pieter Levels’ girlfriend. The tech-forward entrepreneur (who’s behind projects like NomadList and InteriorAI) decided to launch a website to track airlines and lost luggage using live data.
Enter the trending world of LuggageLosers, a new concept in data and accountability that’s already been featured in publications like the NY Post and Business Today.
According to the website, it’s ‘a live ranking of airlines by how much luggage they are losing right now.’
Should be immediately useful, right? Well… it sounds good, that’s for sure.
I’m endlessly intrigued by these types of projects—mostly because I’m very critical of data and how it’s analyzed.
So let’s take a closer look at LuggageLosers to gauge whether or not this new aggregate site is delivering reliable information—and whether you should really avoid the top losers listed in the rankings.
The results: constantly shifting
LuggageLosers is updated around the clock, which means its rankings are constantly shifting for all 97 airlines.
At the time of writing on 25 July, Korean Air is in first place with only 482 lost bags in the last 30 days. By contrast, Iberian Air has lost 86,000 bags in the last 30 days.
From the outside looking in, this seems to track.
Levels, the man who created the website, was inspired to do so when his girlfriend’s bags were lost on a flight to Barcelona… and then again on the way back to Texas.
But these results are constantly shifting, which means that by the time this article is published, there will be a new champion and a new loser in the realm of lost luggage.
And then there’s the question: how reliable are these rankings to begin with?
How is LuggageLosers collecting data?
Levels created the algorithm that ranks airlines that lose luggage according to two metrics: complaints related to lost luggage in the past 30 days and official reports of lost bags in the last 30 days.
Using these two metrics, his algorithm assigns a luggage score and a probability score to each airline. There’s also a column that tracks an airline’s recent rankings.
Based on the total sum of these scores, airlines are ranked—and with new reports and complaints coming in constantly, the algorithm always reflects the latest data.
Which brings me to my point: what’s this data that Levels is using?
Data is notoriously finicky. It can be collected easily—but how is it applied and analyzed?
In this case, Levels collects data based on complaints made on social media. He cross-references these complaints with lost luggage data from airlines and airports.
Between the complaints and lost luggage reports, we should be able to glean a near-perfect vision of an airline’s predilection to losing luggage. ‘Should’ being the key word.
Is LuggageLosers reliable?
Here’s the part where I point out the flaws that I see.
But let me first state that I really like this idea and platform created by Levels. Flyers desperately need access to this type of homegrown data studies, which can help them avoid some seriously negligent airlines.
Now onto the flaws…
First and foremost, there’s a blatant issue related to luggage handling. In many places around the world, including the US, airport ground crews handle your luggage—not the airline. (Should I repeat that in all caps?)
So, it might make more sense to grade and rank airport ground crews when it comes to misplaced suitcases.
Second, it automatically places the blame on an airline. In reality, your luggage might have been stolen at luggage claim or mistakenly picked up by the wrong passenger.
In other words, your luggage might have been treated carefully throughout its time with an airline—and then thrown the wolves when it was time to change hands, so to speak.
Third, Levels’ algorithm claims to cross-reference missing luggage reports with social media complaints. But I have no idea how the algorithm does that… and how it manages not to double-count the same complaints across different social media platforms.
And how many people are complaining about the same lost bag?
This brings me to my last critique: complaining tends to be cultural. That means you might see more reports counted against airlines in places where people tend to noisily air out their complaints. My point is this: complaints need to be processed before they’re turned into data points.
Do US airlines really sell your luggage?
Part of the reason Levels was concerned about his girlfriend’s luggage being lost (for a second time) at the Austin airport is that airlines are allowed to sell unclaimed luggage.
Even if you do try to reclaim your lost suitcase, and they can’t find it, and it remains unclaimed… it’ll still be sold.
I’m not joking: you can shop through lost suitcases right now on Unclaimed Baggage, a business that makes its money from shilling off the innards of long-lost luggage.
That’s another reason I like LuggageLosers. It’s looking to challenge these little-known factors that impact travelers who fly every year. It’s looking to uncover all the factors that go into creating a messy and anger-inducing airport experience.
So, while Levels’ algorithm is flawed and needs work, I think you should absolutely dig a little deeper if you see your airline listed in its top rankings.