January 9, 2005
LOST LUGGAGE FOR SALE
Where can you buy someone else's lingerie or underwear without them knowing about your purchase? According to today's Indianapolis Star, in Scottsboro, Alabama, at the Unclaimed Baggage Center--a one-of-a-kind store that buys and resells truckloads of stuff from luggage the airlines are unable to match back up with airline customers. From the this Sunday's Indianapolis Star:
The course by which baggage makes its way from the airport to Scottsboro is deliberate. Airlines take from 90 to 120 days to find the owners of unclaimed luggage, inspecting lost bags inside and out for contact information and cross-checking a description of the bags with a sophisticated airline database.
Should no owners emerge, the luggage often is sold to the Alabama outlet, which has contracts with most major airlines. Luggage owners who do not receive their bags are compensated up to $2,500 per bag, according to federal guidelines.
According to Unclaimed Baggage's website, around sixty percent (60%) of the merchandise found at the northeast Alabama center is clothing, with the rest of the store--which adds over 5,000 items to its inventory every day--is dedicated to cameras, electronics, sporting goods, jewelry, designer optical, books and of course, luggage.
I'm lucky...none of my luggage has ever found its way to Scottsboro, Alabama. Once, while in colege, on a flight from Houston to New York, my bags visited London for a few days without me in tow (that's because New York's La Guardia airport's code is LGA while London's Gatwick is LGW), and another time--on a trip from Boulder to Michigan's Upper Peninsula for a work-related trip--my luggage arrived on day five of a six-day trip. Scottsboro appears to be around 425 miles from Indianapolis. Road trip anyone?
Posted by Mikal at January 9, 2005 4:18 PM
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