Ever been frustrated by an airline that lost your luggage?
Statistics show worldwide about 30 million bags a year are misplaced or go missing.
Brianne Randle went underground to find out what it takes to keep those bags in check at Honolulu International Airport.
If Honolulu International Airport was a hive – travelers would be the swarm of busy bees eager to get in and out and on their way.
Most often they’re lugging around, well luggage. So after you get your ticket, that excess baggage is happily left in the hands of airline and airport crew.
But rarely do we question, much less get to see – where our precious cargo – goes – before we pick it up at our final destination.
"Drop off your bag and it comes out the other side," said one traveler.
"I always wonder, what hands are touching, when you let go of it, what’s the process it goes through before it makes it to the plane and what process before it got back to here," said another traveler.
"You don’t even realize it you check your bag in, next thing you know you’re pulling your bag off the flight," said Department of Transportation spokesman Dan Meisenzahl.
The process breaks down into numbers.
In a single 24-hour day, tens of thousands of people pass through Honolulu Airport. Working 365 days a year is a staff of over 700 TSA personnel: security officers, inspectors and directors. All focused on getting people to planes and luggage to planes and people. How much luggage?
"Can you imagine that, 50,000 bags pieces of luggage a day, and every one is checked by TSA," Meisenzahl said.
That’s a whole lot of luggage. To put it in perspective – 50,000 is the seating capacity of Aloha Stadium. And more often than not – that baggage finds it way back to you.
"If you think about it, it’s amazing that our bags always get there considering how much travel they actually do before they get on the airplane," Meisenzahl said.
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Tuesday at 10 p.m. I go underground at the airport to see how it all works and the tools TSA uses to keep travelers safe and bags from becoming lost luggage.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
