Mishandled baggage rates dropped 23% last year but lost luggage still costs the industry $6.3 billion annually.
Those were the main conclusions from the SITA 2026 Baggage IT Insights report, the 20th annual edition of the industry benchmark.
The report revealed that each bag carries an average cost of $260. With net profit averaging just $8 per passenger, one mishandled bag wipes out the profit from more than 30 seats sold and five erase the profit of an entire flight.
Passenger volumes are rising faster than the infrastructure designed to handle them, the report states. In 2025 alone, five billion passengers travelled globally, yet 24 million bags were still mishandled.
Across the longer term, mishandling has fallen by close to three-quarters since 2007.
What changed in 2025 was not one technology, but a shift in how systems connect: real-time data sharing, AI routing, biometric bag drop and connected passenger devices.
“Baggage is shifting from a logistical problem to a digital service,” said Nicole Hogg, Portfolio Director Baggage, SITA.
“Passengers expect to know where their bag is at every moment and they’re increasingly willing to help us track it.
“The next phase is about bringing the technology we already have to every transfer, every handler and every airport, offering greater visibility and connecting every step of the journey. That’s how the industry earns the trust passengers now expect.”
Apple’s Find My integration with SITA WorldTracer cut permanently lost luggage by 90% in its first year and shortened delayed-bag recovery by 26%.
SITA also recently integrated Google’s Find Hub share item location feature into WorldTracer. Thai Airways, using SITA’s Auto Reflight, compressed a three-minute task to a single second per bag across nine airports.
The trajectory is clear. Three in four airlines plan to invest in AI over the next two years. Half plan to give passengers real-time baggage updates.
Industry-wide baggage tracking under IATA Resolution 753 has now passed the 50% mark, with full compliance targeted for 2027.
The next horizon is already on the runway: tagging bags at home, dropping your bags in the car park and bags that don’t need to fly on the same aircraft as the passenger.
