Lost luggage: Kansai International Airport hasn’t lost a bag in 30 years

Kansai International Airport, in Osaka, won this year's Skytrax award for World’s Best Airport for Baggage Delivery. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

Lost luggage puts a dampener on any traveller’s holiday. Fortunately, the rate of mishandled luggage is improving from the 10-year-high it hit in 2022.

However, throughout the pandemic, one airport did not lose a single suitcase. In fact, it hasn’t lost a piece of luggage in 30 years.

An airport in Japan is celebrating a milestone few other airports could ever achieve: 30 years of not losing a single bag.

Kansai International Airport (KIX), in Osaka, has not lost any passenger luggage since it opened in 1994.

The airport credited airlines and handling companies for the achievement.

“We believe that the record of having no baggage lost since the opening of the airport is the result of the daily efforts and careful work of everyone involved, including airlines and handling companies,” KIX said in a press release.

Unsurprisingly, the airport won the Skytrax award for World’s Best Airport for Baggage Delivery this year, for the eighth time. The award assesses several key factors including the airport’s response to lost luggage, how efficiently bags are delivered and how long passengers must wait for their bags on arrival.

KIX isn’t a small airport either. It served about 28 to 30 million passengers a year pre-pandemic and handled about 10m pieces of baggage in the 2023 fiscal year.

Not a single one was lost; an achievement the airport claims is due to having two to three employees collaborating and checking information for baggage and passengers on every flight.

“It’s important for multiple staff members to share information to prevent mistakes arising from erroneous assumptions,” Tsuyoshi Habuta, who supervises baggage operations at CKTS, an airport operator that services the airport, told Nikkei Asia.

This doesn’t mean someone flying into or out of KIX has never lost a suitcase. The 30-year streak refers to the airport’s baggage handlers and ground staff never mishandling a bag. It does not account for airlines losing or forgetting a bag when departing KIX or flying there from another destination.

According to CKTS, its goal is to have bags reunited with passengers within 15 minutes of a flight landing at KIX.

The airport’s 30-year-streak may be remarkable to many travellers but Kenji Takanishi, a PR officer for Kansai, told CNN it didn’t feel particularly noteworthy.

“We don’t feel like we have been doing something special,” he said, adding that staff were regularly recognised for their work.

However, the airport was “certainly happy” to receive the Skytrax award for 2024 and ground staff would be especially pleased with the recognition.

Kansai Airport is expected to serve 37.3m passengers during the 2025 fiscal year.