Airlines' baggage handling improved in 2023, according to aviation technology company SITA.
Globally, airlines mishandled 6.9 bags per 1,000 last year, according to SITA's 2024 Baggage IT Insights Report.
That's down 9.2% from a mishandled rate of 7.6 per 1,000 in 2022, even though passenger traffic increased by approximately 30% in 2023.
Among U.S. airlines, the mishandled-baggage rate was 5.77 per 1,000 last year, SITA said.
Baggage mishandling was far more likely on international routes than domestic ones, occurring at a rate of 12.1 per thousand for international itineraries compared to 2.4 per thousand for domestic ones.
Overall, airlines mishandled 36.1 million bags last year.
SITA uses IATA passenger traffic data combined with data from its own WorldTracer automated tracking solution to calculate the mishandled-bag rate.
The technology company said that 82% of mishandled bags were baggage delays. The remainder were divided between damaged or pilfered bags and lost or stolen bags.
Among bags that were delayed, the most common cause by far was transfer mishandling at 46%. A failure to load the baggage was the second lead cause at 16% of occurrences.
In the report, SITA emphasized that the types of technology deployments that it works on, including bag-tracking digitization and touchless bag drop, are key to reducing mishandled baggage and improving customer satisfaction.