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# The airline lost my bag and I'm the last one at the carousel
- URL: https://www.thefrictionlog.com/08180/
- Published: 2026-10-17T12:09:23.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-17T12:09:23.000Z
- Description: Filed: the 1970s · Patched · Bag trackers shared with the airline
- Author: The Clerk
- Tags: Patched

*The belt stopped twenty minutes ago. My suit for tomorrow is in that bag.* — Best man, 2023

When an airline finally gives up on a bag, it can end up for sale in Scottsboro, Alabama. A store there has been buying lost luggage since 1970\. Live snakes have turned up in the suitcases. Most bags do get home, eventually. SITA, which runs a bag-tracing system for the airlines, counted 4.9 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers in 2025\. That's still 24 million bags. Now you can tuck a tracker inside and send the airline a link to where it sits. Apple and Google both set that up with the airlines. So your phone knows where the bag is. Somebody still has to go get it.

**For now**: put a tracker in your checked bag, and if it doesn't come out, attach its share link to the airline's lost-bag report.