Japan Kansai Airportlocated on a slowly sinking artificial island in Osaka Bay, opened in September 1994and despite handling millions of pieces of baggage each year, has never lost a single piece of luggage. Accordingly Reports from ForbesThe airport prides itself on its ability to accommodate every piece of luggage From the belly of the plane to baggage claim in under 15 minutes. The There are several levels of control at the airport to make sure the sacks don’t grow legs and go away.
“It is important that multiple employees share information to avoid errors due to incorrect assumptions,” said Tsuyoshi Habuta, who oversees baggage operations at CKTS.
There is no secret recipe for keeping track of bags. Counting the number of pieces of luggage unloaded from a plane is an important step here, as aircraft personnel are immediately notified if they are missing a piece of luggage to search for. The airport requires airlines to provide detailed information about where each piece of luggage will be stowed on the plane. Like many Japanese companies, Kansai has adopted a Kaizen approach to baggage transportation and seeks to continually improve and implement suggestions from frontline employees. It seems to be a very effective strategy.
Even Carlos Ghosn’s infamous instrument case was transported through Kansai without any problems.
As an automotive journalist who flies a few dozen times a year, I haven’t traveled with checked luggage since 2017. I’ve struggled with too many lost luggage in the past and simply reduce all of my luggage to still take with me depending on how far I’m going or how long I’ll be gone. I’d much rather deal with doing laundry in a French hotel basement than tracking down a misplaced rolling bag with all my underwear in it. Even though I know Kansai’s past, I’m not sure I would want to change my policy if I were to fly there. There are still plenty of possibilities for my shit to be left behind at my airport of origin or make a stop somewhere along the way.
During the busiest months of the year, the baggage error rate rises to about 0.75 percent. The job of an airport is to transport people and their belongings around the world. It’s certainly more important that people get to their destination safely, but lost luggage is a real nuisance. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport handles about 100,000 bags per day, and if the industry average is 0.75 percent, that’s 750 lost bags in a single day. Yikes.
Kansai expects about 37 million passengers in 2025, more than double the 13.99 million passengers in 2023. If the airport can continue its track record in baggage quality with the influx of new travelers, it will be truly impressive.