Worse, baggage handlers and Transportation Security Administration officers have been caught stealing valuables from checked luggage.
Among the red flags were that Reid bought a one-way ticket with cash and had no checked luggage.
Fewer passengers and hefty baggage fees reduced the volume of checked luggage, and so airlines lost fewer bags per passenger.
WSJ: An Airline Report Card: Fewer Delays, Hassles Last Year, but Bumpy Times May Be Ahead
As the cartridges that inflate the bags are pressurised, they are not allowed onto aeroplanes flying within the US, even as checked luggage.
The small black and orange box is preprogrammed with your phone numbers and dropped into a piece of checked luggage.
Carriers should also be required to match checked luggage with on-board passengers.
Consumers have been able to buy cordless hair curlers powered by butane for years, and take them in checked luggage, but confusion remains.
Some fuel cells can charge a device roughly 12 times before needing a replacement cartridge of butane (which the US government permits in checked luggage on airplanes).
In the United Kingdom, mobs of stranded passengers have begun to thin out, but people are still struggling to repack checked luggage after security officials banned all carry-on bags.
Travelers be warned: The security gate at Louisville's Standiford Field airport has a huge crate of confiscated miniature bats, so remember to pack souvenir bats in your checked luggage.
Families of those who died when Pan Am 103 was brought down by a terrorist bomb hidden in a piece of checked luggage have pushed for such a requirement for years.
Some of the questioning involved an incident from September 26, 2008, when he was caught in Amsterdam carrying an unloaded shotgun in his checked luggage on his way from the United States to Nigeria.
American's on-time rate climbed to 75.7% from 68.6%, according to FlightStats, and the rate at which it mishandled checked luggage dropped by 25%, according to DOT data for the first 10 months of 2009, the most recent numbers available.
WSJ: An Airline Report Card: Fewer Delays, Hassles Last Year, but Bumpy Times May Be Ahead
The bag wasn't seen again when Simpson checked his luggage at the airport.
At O'Hare, both men reportedly checked their luggage onto a flight bound for Sanaa, which was scheduled to stop at both Washington Dulles International Airport and Dubai.
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But frequent business travelers always try to hold on to their travel gear for a simple reason -- the inexcusably long time it takes for checked-in luggage to make it to baggage-claim carousels.
James Williams, a skycap who checked in Simpson's luggage at the airport, said Simpson only checked the garment bag and golf bag, and that he saw Simpson with one duffel bag.
That translates into one passenger out of every 287 on domestic flights who arrive without the luggage they checked.
While the International Air Transport Administration also considers compressed gas cylinders hazardous in general, the body approves of the avalanche-specific canisters for either checked or carry-on luggage, thereby making the US the only country in the world to prohibit them. (Passengers outside the US are, however, required to inform the airline before their flight that they will be transporting the system).
All hand luggage had to be checked into the hold of aircraft, with only passports and travel documents allowed on board.
The hand luggage was screened, the passport was checked, he went through a magnetometer.
It's a stackable, lightweight (1, 000 pounds) electric car that can be checked out from a curbside rack, like a luggage cart at the airport, then returned later to any rack around the city.
Another option: bag matching, meant to ensure that no luggage goes on a plane unless the passenger who checked it is on board.
The luggage locator system delivers city-specific information on the whereabouts of checked baggage in real time.
ENGADGET: Trakdot Luggage hands-on: find your lost bags Hands-on
According the company, the luggage locator system delivers city-specific information on the whereabouts of checked baggage in real time.
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Passengers are checked, but there is a concierge to handle last-minute details and bellhops to handle luggage, she said.
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