Phoenix couple arrested with 1,000 stolen bags - Can it happen at San Diego Airport?

November 7, 8:53 AMSan Diego Airport ExaminerJoel Siegfried

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Earlier this week, Phoenix police arrested 62 year old Keith King and his wife, 38 year old 
Stacy Lynne Legg-King for possessing stolen property. That's putting it mildly. The couple had over 1,000 pieces of luggage in their possession. They were seen picking up luggage from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport (PHX). Even though he was caught and arrested three weeks earlier, King continued his bag stealing routine, while police had him under surveillance.

King had entered the airport terminal more than 64 times in the past several months, but had not been booked on a flight in the past year. Now he's been booked on felony charges.

The couple's home was packed with stolen property, including clothing, appliances, cameras, and electronics. There were multiple laptops, cell phones, iPods, DVD players and devices for GPS navigation.

CAPTION: (ABOVE LEFT) Keith King mug shot by Phoenix Police Department (Photo credit - AP)

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CAPTION: (ABOVE RIGHT) Stacy Lynne Legg-King mug shot by Phoenix Police (Photo credit - AP)

"The amount of luggage being stored inside the residence was almost surreal, and it was obvious that the property strewn about the residence in piles did not belong to defendant Keith King," wrote investigating Officer Kendall Goo in his Phoenix police report.

Police are asking that people who suspect they may be victims of these thefts call 602-495-7808.

Like San Diego International Airport (SAN), and practically all airports in the United States, Phoenix has an open, unsupervised baggage claim area. While passengers must pass through a security inspection to board their flights, nobody seems to care what goes on in the baggage halls. This causes some to believe that checking their bag is like playing Russian roulette. It's not a matter of if your luggage will go missing, but rather when it will happen.

CAPTION: (ABOVE LEFT) Stolen bags recovered by Phoenix Police from King residence (Photo credit - AP)

Each year, the airlines permanently lose over a million pieces of luggage, and that number is increasing, in spite of sophisticated technology that includes radio tracking and bar code scanning. In 2007, the Daily Telegraph, a U.K. newspaper, reported that British Airways alone was estimated to misplace 1.3 million bags that year. That means that on every BA 747 flight carrying 350 passengers, the equivalent of 10 would not find their bags on the carousel.

In total, airlines mishandled 32.8 million pieces of luggage in 2008, down from 42 million the year before. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported recently that the airline industry is getting smarter with managing bags, and turning to technology for help. IBM and Motorola have developed a system to tag bags with radio-frequency identification, or RFID, which is 99% accurate. More than 15% of standard bar codes are misread, or the tags themselves fall off.

CAPTION: (ABOVE RIGHT) Airline employee scanning baggage tag (Photo credit - Wall Street Journal)

According to the Department of Transportation, the U.S. airline with the lowest incident of mishandled baggage reports is AirTran Airways with only 1.78 reports per 1,000 bags as of July 2009. In second place was Hawaiian Airlines with 2.00 reported incidents per 1,000 bags. American Eagle was in last place with an index of 7.00, the worst of all carriers, and its parent company, American Airlines had 4.73 reports per thousand bags carried.

All the scanners and technological innovations are not going to prevent thieves from walking off with your luggage. The San Diego Airport Examiner spoke with the Airport Authority's Assistant Director of Communications about steps being taken to reduce such temptations locally. He promised to contact airport security and comment early next week. We will report that information as soon as it is given to us.

CAPTION: (ABOVE LEFT) DOT chart of mishandled bags as of July 2009 (Photo credit - Department of Transportation)

For years, we have been advising friends and colleagues to travel as lightly as possible, and never check their luggage. Always carry it onboard. We personally know several people who have lost their checked luggage on non stop short haul flights, and never saw their bags again.

This is especially good advice for carriers such as American Airlines, who charge a fee to check bags, as much as $20 each way for the first piece, and $30 each way for the second checked bag. For two checked bags on American, the cost is $100 per round trip. Both JetBlue and Southwest Airlines do not charge for the first bag checked, if you absolutely must check it, and Southwest also lets you check a second bag at no cost. That includes golf clubs and duffel bags.

CAPTION: (ABOVE RIGHT) Passengers collecting bags at San Diego Airport's Terminal 2 (Photo credit - Joel Siegfried)

If your bags are lost, you have certain rights.  According to The Travel Insider, about 2% of all missing bags remain lost. Depending on the carrier, it can take between a week to as much as a month for the airline to determine that your property is gone for good. Best advice is to claim reimbursement for delayed baggage first, in order to replace essential items that you may need on your trip. If the bag is determined to be lost, you need to file a separate claim for the actual value of its contents, in addition to the cost of the luggage. You will have to list a detailed inventory, and some carriers require you to provide purchase receipts.

Reimbursement limits are set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and have recently increased by 13.1%. On domestic flights, the airline baggage liability is limited to $3,000 per passenger. On international flights, the liability limit may vary, as it is governed by various international rules, including the Montreal and Warsaw Conventions.

CAPTION: (ABOVE LEFT) Passengers collecting bags at San Diego Airport's Terminal 2 (Photo credit - Joel Siegfried)

We'd like to know if you've ever lost a bag while traveling. Please share your experiences.

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