> In early December, a 35-year-old passenger from Tanzania was impressed to see that all the handles of the suitcases on the conveyor belt in the baggage claim area were facing the passengers.
> After the luggage is unloaded and collected in the cargo handling area upon arrival at the airport, ground support personnel manually align the handles of the bags and place them on the conveyor belt.
That's a level of attention to detail that we should be striving for in everything we build.
I think it also highlights something: better things are possible.
Zero lost suitcases doesn't require magic to achieve. It just requires enough workers or enough time to make sure each worker is able to do their job successfully. Unfortunately financial and time constraints mean that very often there aren't enough workers or enough time, and some passengers suffer.
Also requires a culture of respect for the people who are handling baggage - an important thing lacking in parts of society in the US, where working fast food is used as a pejorative.
The culture bit is the most important. You could add 100x the current headcount at all American airports and because the workers simply don't give a shit about doing good work, because they're treating it as a 9 to 5, where they have to go and suffer through a meaningless 8 hours, or worse, they treat it like their own personal access to other people's stuff to loot at will.
The TSA is security theater, a vast majority of American jobs seem to be competence theater. You only ever tend to see care and craft in small business and actual crafts. It's so rare that it's incredibly refreshing to find anyone in any business that bothers to do good work and take care of the small things.
It's not about respecting the baggage handlers. It's about a culture where you respect yourself such that you are obliged to do the best work you can, whether it's baggage handling, being a CEO, or flipping burgers. Self respect and respect for the job far outweigh any notion of employers or other citizens respecting baggage handlers. They have sophisticated notions of status and face and place in society that are sadly absent in American culture.
You could take the Kansai airport baggage handler team and drop them into any airline in the world, and they'd perform to the same high standard. Take any halfass United Airline baggage team and drop them at Kansai and they'd be breaking guitars, killing dogs, and all the other usual shenanigans just like back at home, and they wouldn't give a flying rat's behind about how their employer respects them or not. They're there for paychecks. Respect doesn't even enter into consideration.
> You could add 100x the current headcount at all American airports and because the workers simply don't give a shit about doing good work, because they're treating it as a 9 to 5, where they have to go and suffer through a meaningless 8 hours, or worse, they treat it like their own personal access to other people's stuff to loot at will.
This places the blame solely on the workers. Their CEO earns a ludicrous multiple of their wage. They are treated like shit and are expendable. It’s a two way street, treat workers with respect and and you might get some respect from them.
Yep. The reason employees don't care about their work is that caring for their work is not valued. Box checkers and opportunists proliferate as loyal craftsmen get screwed over repeatedly.
> You could take the Kansai airport baggage handler team and drop them into any airline in the world, and they'd perform to the same high standard. Take any halfass United Airline baggage team and drop them at Kansai and they'd be breaking guitars, killing dogs, and all the other usual shenanigans just like back at home, and they wouldn't give a flying rat's behind about how their employer respects them or not. They're there for paychecks. Respect doesn't even enter into consideration.
The hypothetical of dropping one baggage team into another airport might be true in an immediate timeframe but it doesn't address the core issue - each team was formed in a completely different society, one values celebrity and quick-buck scamming, one values planting trees that cast shade long after you're dead. Pretending like the influential people who steer the most economic activity aren't to blame at all for that difference in culture is insane, especially when we have a felon president who has been pardoning many high profile fraudsters.
> The hypothetical of dropping one baggage team into another airport might be true in an immediate timeframe but it doesn't address the core issue - each team was formed in a completely different society, one values celebrity and quick-buck scamming, one values planting trees that cast shade long after you're dead.
I'd say it's even simpler than that - new people quickly adjust to their workplace culture. Take any individual "halfass United Airline" baggage handler and drop them at Kansai, and I'd expect that soon after, they'd be "performing to the same high standard" - or they'll get managed out.
But then, there's the other thing - take a large team, or worse, take the managers from a half-ass shop and drop them at Kansai, and it's quite likely that in a year, Kansai will be no better than United.
Years ago I had an argument with my HR director at the time. I Was hiring for a position and I said I was willing to pay what was approximately 10-15% above market for the position at the time. He said he could get me a dozen prospects at the market rate or even ten percent below, that I was wasting my budget. I said, "I don't want the people who will work for that, the people I'm looking for know they're worth more." He repeated he felt I was over paying. I said, "look at my head count, and compare it to our competitors. I have half the staff but higher metrics in every category. You don't hear about major or long lasting IT problems here. I'm paying 115% but I'm getting 150% and overall spending less."
When your people feel respected and compensated, they work far better.
> This places the blame solely on the workers. Their CEO earns a ludicrous multiple of their wage. They are treated like shit and are expendable. It’s a two way street, treat workers with respect and and you might get some respect from them.
In southern Ontario there are multiple car factories from various makers. The plants of the Detroit Three are all unionized. There are also plants for Toyota/Lexus and Honda, and after decades of asking, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) or Unifor unions has not unionized them: the employees are not interested.
Seems that the workers don't feel they need a union as a counter-weight to management at Japanese companies.
Them being paid better wouldn't resolve the issue. Updating American culture such that individuals respected themselves, had a sense of shame, operated from a baseline of respect and gratitude for the opportunity to be working in the first place, these things fix the issue. Concurrently, the CEO respecting the workers, the institution, themselves, would result in wages commensurate to their value.
Expecting excellence, putting care and craft into your work, is something that is taught, it doesn't just magically happen.
Paying these same workers more would not noticeably improve outcomes, people would still lose luggage, steal shit, and then have even more money to spend.
The workers and the CEO are products of their culture, and without some sort of specific intervention against the outcomes wrought by those cultural influences, things would continue as before. Serious institutions indoctrinate their members and build a culture oriented around expectations of excellence and care and craft.
Such institutions can't compete in the marketplace we've set up, because it's cheaper to offer shitty service and low product quality, to keep employees expendable, low skill, low paid cogs, and to reward CEOs and management willing to screw over their fellow employees at every opportunity to ensure the number goes up.
That doesn't change unless the culture changes, which would change the regulatory environment, which would allow for things like excellent service and quality to be valued accordingly. America doesn't value excellence, it values "number go up."
I'm interested to hear why you think that better pay wouldn't help the issue. Being comfortable with your living situation and feeling like you're respected in excess of your boss's federal or state legal obligations plays a big role in having the wherewithal to put serious effort into whatever you're doing day to day, and it helps to mitigate the divide between the richest and the poorest among us / bad jokes or insults that originate out of fear of being poor.
> Such institutions can't compete in the marketplace we've set up, because it's cheaper to offer shitty service and low product quality, to keep employees expendable, low skill, low paid cogs, and to reward CEOs and management willing to screw over their fellow employees at every opportunity to ensure the number goes up.
The federal minimum wage has been the same since 2009, but In-N-Out is an example of a company that chooses to avoid blaming the worker or the market or the regulatory environment for all of their business difficulties. They choose to pay well over the California minimum wage, and I don't find it coincidental that I've had better experiences with employees there vs some other fast food locations. Costco has made similar choices with how they treat their employees and they're doing great. No regulation needed, just better leadership.
The CEOs that blame "inevitable" market forces on why they have to treat employees poorly while refusing to look inward will ironically lose out in the market. And at a larger scale, probably the countries too.
It's certainly possible to find people who care about doing a job properly in a western society. Paying a bit more has been suggested on another post as a method of trying to achieve that, but I'd argue that that is necessary but not sufficient. You need to not only pay people a bit more, but also screen them very carefully for the attitude of doing the job properly.
It is a cultural problem. Just paying a bit more won't fix it. By paying a bit more, you might be able to get a larger share of the limited portion of people in the society that care, but you're not changing the people fundamentally, just being more selective.
> Based on recent 2023-2024 data, the average CEO-to-employee pay ratio at major Japanese corporations is roughly 12:1 to 20:1, significantly lower than the 200:1–300:1 ratios seen in the U.S..
Oh why even mention time constraints, we all know damn well it's financial. Every corp on the face of the earth is constantly cost-cutting everything to the bone to justify more bonuses and higher executive compensation, while making sure the service or products provided are just barely good enough where people don't stage outright riots.
In the sixties, the C-suite earned 21 times what the line worker did. In 2024 it's almost 300 times. So every single time you're dealing with a product that's been value-engineered to where it barely functions, or service people paid too little and empowered too little to actually help you, or stuck in a long ass line because they won't hire enough people, or stuck talking to some damn robot because people are expensive, it's beyond a safe bet that you have an executive or several to blame.
We should be spreading our cynicism over both management and customers. There is almost no level of service so terrible that people won't buy cheaper airline tickets. Let alone losing luggage, you could dial up the risk of death and people would still buy the cheaper tickets.
There's also something about the collapse in civility. Or... something. If you asked a plane full of passengers if they'd be happy to get their suitcase 5 minutes earlier even though it meant someone else lost theirs a lot of them would say yes.
I think we can lay the blame for this on the wealthy elites, too. When people see someone better off than them greedily destroying society for their own personal gain, they naturally think "well why not me, too?".
We need shame, really, societal shame that we inflict on those who have to take government benefits, perhaps. Flying an airline that's known to treat their employees like shit should cause the people at the cocktail to look at you strange.
(We kind of have something like this in that shopping at Costco is considered "good" but lots of people won't admit they shop at Walmart - I'm sure they'll be bankrupt soon given how many people don't shop there!)
What I meant is that most people do admit to shopping at Walmart with no embarrassment. Not the same for buying CCC. They still buy it but they know they shouldn't. Shopping at Walmart isn't like that.
Walmart is pretty much the only big discount store available to many people regardless of their income level unless they have personal shoppers picking stuff up for them. I have a nearby Walmart; the nearest Costco is an hour away and it's a different type of product mix anyway. I don't love shopping at Walmart for a number of reasons but it's convenient for many purposes.
Yes, there will always be someone willing to buy on price alone, but that doesn't mean that there aren't also people who will pay more for better service. To wit: Spirit is financially fucked, mainline carriers are in better condition. The existence
I think the real thing is that - in North America at least - there is a pretty good chance that a mainline carrier will treat you poorly, hit you with unexpected fees, jam you into a tiny seat, etc.
For many people, the difference between an ultra-low cost carrier and a mainline carrier is whether they have to walk through first class on the way to their seats. If you are going to get treated like cattle and upsold on everything anyway, might as well save a few bucks.
Given the choice between Singapore Airlines and United, I'll pay extra for SingAir because I KNOW the service will be better. Given the choice between United and Southwest, I'll just get whichever flight makes the most sense since I don't really expect United to offer better service.
> For many people, the difference between an ultra-low cost carrier and a mainline carrier is whether they have to walk through first class on the way to their seats. If you are going to get treated like cattle and upsold on everything anyway, might as well save a few bucks.
That goes beyond airlines and extends to everything. The trend I've been observing in every product and service category is the hollowing out of the middle: the market bifurcates, one part serving the cost-sensitive customers and getting stuck in a race to the bottom, the other serving premium clientele with highest-quality or bespoke goods/services, gravitating towards few customers and "if you have to ask, you can't afford it pricing".
Multiplying volume by margin, "lots of cheap shit" and "few pricey sales" are both sustainable, but the middle segment - "reasonable quality for reasonable price" - is not.
I would argue this is because the middle class itself has been largely hollowed out. Everyone is either a millionaire or on the edge of bankruptcy, no in-between.
I mean, is that a consequence of people being innately, for it's own sake, cheap to a point of farce? Or is that a consequence of fifty years of stagnant wages?
I'm sure it's a healthy blend of both, but IMO, if you want to see this actually change, the first thing to even make it tenable as a possibility is the owning classes need to let some money flow down the hierarchy. Like I'm sure we'll always have our misers, our people who refuse to spend a penny more for anything, but I think the vast majority of the time what drives people to shitty retailers selling crap-quality products is that most people are fucking broke.
> I mean, is that a consequence of people being innately, for it's own sake, cheap to a point of farce?
Yes.
The price-driven market segment will never disappear and is an emergent property of human nature and the dynamics of a marketplace where prices are instantly comparable.
Plane tickets are way more affordable for nearly everyone than they used to be, but price competition is more savage than ever. The marketplace has spoken.
While I agree that concentration of wealth at the top is a major problem, I don't think that shaking loose that wealth will change the price dynamics of the airline industry in the slightest.
Well not every one on the face of this earth as that’s where Kansai airport is located. It happens a lot in America and other places too but not everywhere
Something I noticed when I traveled to Japan was how many workers there were just doing things. Attention to detail is so amazing. Things as simple as guiding people in the sidewalk while construction vehicles exit the site has a person dedicated to it
That sounds more like an attempt to fight with unemployment - any job, even if unnecessary, is better than no job for both finances and mental well-being.
> What a passive way to say executives kept a larger share of profits for themselves, forcing workers to be stressed and do a sub-optimal job.
This is a very limited view of why things don't work. The main issue in my experience is whether the company values the outcome and ensures focus on optimizing for it. That can include everything from adequate staffing to comp to training to management focus. (A lot of the last one.)
You can spend a huge amount of money and still get a crappy outcome. US healthcare provides a rich field of examples.
US healthcare is a leader in administration fees (e.g. paying health system executives) compared to other countries around the world. High US healthcare cost isn't because of increased usage, but because of the higher admin fees and higher prescription drug prices. Prices are fixed high because law prevents the government from negotiating prices (o.b.o. Medicare/aid), and those provisions were inserted on behalf of pharmaceutical companies so their executives could make more money.
Paying individual workers more may have some benefits, but I think the key issue is usually overworking and burnout because the incremental cost of adding a whole new employee is way higher than just pressuring workers to do more work in the same time.
Also you need to keep organized crime out of airports. Some percentage of lost luggage is actually stolen luggage. Misrouting is also another large percentage. In the US unclaimed lost luggage ends up in some gigantic warehouse in Alabama.
What percentage? I imagine it is insanely low. The risk to reward ratio of making money off a random bag at the airpot has got to be as low, if not lower than, the actual percentage stolen. One thing I've never been worried about it is organized crime, or anyone really, stealing my bag at an airport.
My understanding is it's taken as a given that the authorities at US airports aren't bothering to catch baggage / item thieves amongst airport staff. The only exception is when a firearm (or luggage containing a firearm) goes missing.
I call that "hidden inflation", and if I were to guess, the ongoing degradation of services across the board, in every aspect, can easily account for actual inflation figures being half of what it feels they should be.
It's the tiny things. Like, you visit a beauty salon or restaurant today, and compare it to the same or equivalent place 5 years ago. PDF menus instead of paper. Apps for booking instead of support staff. Leaflets where there used to be magazines to browse. No complimentary coffee. Kitchenware that used to be pristine and high-quality, is now the cheapest offering for commercial wholesaler. There's less light, worse decor, no music (or louder music, to boost turnover), worse sound-proofing, etc.
Sure, the prices are the same, or maybe little higher. But the overall quality of service - not just direct service, but whole experience and ambiance - took a nosedive, so you pay a little more, for much less.
You start looking for it, and the slow decay of everything becomes apparent even on the scale of months.
As an American who has lived in Japan and traveled around Asia, Europe, and South America, Japan's attention to detail is almost superhuman. From how bathroom lines are managed, packages are wrapped, garden moss is curated, dishes are plated, everything is almost perfect. It's like the level of service in Michelin restaurants, applied down to the lowliest of jobs.
There's nitpicks people will find with a statement like this but I've never found anything like it.
In the airplane industry, KPIs and beancounting are just a response to a mindbendingly price-driven marketplace — to the extent that consumers need to be protected by regulations from flying in unsafe planes.
I agree that there's an issue about western capitalism, but I don't think it's in the tension between middle management and craftspeople who take pride in their work. I think the problems arise at a higher level, with the modern-day aristocracy of the capitalist ownership class and the slice of the pie that they capture.
One of my (two) suitcases was lost once when I flew to Japan. But I didn't have to find out by waiting forever at the conveyor belt until I realized that.
Instead, when I left the airplane a person was there waiting for me, just outside the door, and explained to me that unfortunately one of my suitcases was missing. It was now in Shanghai instead of Japan. The person then walked with me to the immigration area, and then met up with me in the baggage hall afterwards, and took me to the right place to fill out the missing luggage papers, and explaining that if I could give the address of my place to stay in Kanji it would be easier. And the suitcase did arrive at my door the next day.
And, of course, in the baggage area itself.. a person from the airline was standing in front of where the bags come out and preventing them from banging into the side when they came down the slide.
Needless to say, but I've been travelling all over the world for decades and something like the above I've never seen anywhere else. Missed luggage uncountable number of times, many destroyed and damaged suitcases of course.. but that's elsewhere.
I'm pretty sure the last time I flew spirit I saw a handler protecting the suitcases. Either that or another airline, but even then Southwest or United, nothing fancy.
Headline's a bit misleading. They've never permanently lost a bag, and well done to them for that, but they've certainly lost them for periods of time. Just eventually found them.
Permanent losses are pretty uncommon in general. Good for them for minimizing but having bags on the next flight or delayed for a couple/three days is way more common. Probably would have to be stolen which is rare, especially in Japan, I assume or end up in some weird location without a scan.
Was flying into Narita once and I had checked luggage in part because I was carrying an award for a Japanese customer. I was sort of given a "we'll get back to you sooner or later." At which point I explained the situation to a supervisor I think and was much fluttering around and got the bag the next day.
I honestly have no idea how those dynamics work. At some point, the airline presumably pays, travel insurance does, or a combination of the two. At some point if it's just a bunch of old travel stuff, I guess I can see a customer shrugging, collecting the money, and dropping the whole thing.
I'm now imagining a situation in which a customer at the point of successfully making an insurance claim to pay for the nice new clothes they've bought themselves is infuriated to receive an email informing them that Kansai airport has found their luggage and will endeavour to deliver it to a hotel anywhere within the world within two days...
The customer has presumably been paid. If they're smart there's nothing or very little in the suitcase that can't just be replaced. The airline/insurance has paid out and just wants the claim to go away.
As a side-note, had a small kitchen fire with smoke damage last year and it was pretty obvious that, even though they were reasonably generous, the insurance adjuster, cleaning people, movers, etc. just wanted the whole process to go away so they could move on. They objected a bit to a few claims but, for the most part, spending $50K was nothing compared to the claims being reopened.
Once the insurance adjuster is satisfied that you're not scamming them, they're often quite flexible and lenient.
I've only ever had luggage delayed once, they gave me a little bag of toiletries and a couple hundred bucks and a few days later delivered the luggage; never demanded the money back.
I've had luggage delayed many times relative to the amount I actually check luggage.
There were a few insurance policy things that my adjuster pushed back on (no code upgrades) and there were a number of things that would have just been silly for me not to pay for when walls were being repaintedd and opened up. There was a fire inspector because of the size of the claim. But it was pretty reasonable overall--although of people wouldn't have had the available cash to do the whole job as it really needed o be done. And, given that a couple of contractors, saved my butt in the middle of the winter, I wasn't going to push back too hard.
And that's not a permanent loss. It may screw up your trip to a greater or lesser degree but I try to build in buffers at least for a shorter delay when I can. I have also had a few multi-day delays--on of which just caught my guided hiking trip with like an hour to spare. And I had already bought a new duffle bag worth of stuff as best I could.
I once flew with ANA to Tokyo/Haneda in First with a rewards-paid ticket for crazy cheap. When I got there and picked up my luggage there was a tag on it, asking me to go to some specific desk. I did. The luggage was a bit janky, but that happens.
They very seriously apologized for breaking my bag. They asked me how much it had cost. I said "around $40, it was just something cheap". A minute later I was sort of ceremoniously handed an envelope with japanese yen notes worth that much.
In Europe, the airlines have broken my checked baggage about 3 times, in places like Vienna, and those had been reasonably solid suitcases.
Obviously, nobody ever offered a compensation.
There is no wonder that such things happen, because at many airports I have seen how the baggage handlers throw the baggage through the air into the vehicles that carry the baggage to the airplanes, even over a distance of a few meters, instead of depositing it gently into the vehicle. Therefore I never put anything fragile in a checked baggage.
When traveling to Japan, I did not have the slightest problem with lost baggage, either at airports, or with the Japanese services that allow you to send your baggage from one hotel to another, to be able to travel more lightly.
However, at the airport, when flying back home I had an unexpected experience. At my final destination, when I retrieved my checked baggage in the airport, it no longer had the padlock that it had at check in, in Japan.
I assume that this happened because at the airport, after check in, they have cut the padlock, to inspect the baggage. I also assume that the inspection was caused by a big kitchen knife that was in the baggage. The kitchen knife had been bought from a shop from Osaka, and it was well sealed inside the original package closed by the shop, but this would not be seen at an X-ray machine.
There was nothing else in the baggage that could be suspicious. In any case, if they inspected the baggage to check the knife, it was done carefully, and the content of the baggage was in the exact same positions as after packing.
I'm only superficially familiar with the Japanese culture, but it somehow feels suprising that they didn't leave an apologetic note explaining that they were forced to destroy the lock and why.
This is reminding me of the story of a Japanese airport doing a full security sweep because one of the airport restaurants had misplaced a kitchen knife.
CT baggage inspection is (fairly) new and only used in some places like carry-on screening. This was probably a behind-the-scenes belt x-ray planar image where the giant chunk of metal blocked everything underneath, so they kicked the bag out for a quick look somewhere along the line.
It’s not too unsurprising to see bags routinely get re-xrayed in the belt system when they come off of flights back stage.
Applying cost-cutting analysis as an intellectual exercise...
Airline ticket sales are so price driven that for much of the market, losing some percentage of bags won't change purchase decisions.
I wonder if it's possible to identify which bags are from budget customers and for Kansai Airport to cut corners for those, accepting a certain loss percentage and saving money. It may not be:
> In addition to monitoring bags with sensors, employees also patrol the area to check for dropped bags. According to the airport management company, this additional step significantly reduces the risk of lost baggage.
I think you either patrol for all dropped bags or give up the patrols entirely, assuming that bags from first-class and budget passengers end up in the same area.
Visited Kansai recently and a few things stood out. Passport control was fully automated: just scanned and walked through. Security flagged something in my bag and resolved it really fast without slowing down the line. It's a small thing, but it's the kind of operational detail that makes a real difference. My travel experience has never been smoother. Makes me wonder why more airports don't get this right.
Yes it all comes to the culture. But we need to take into account that Japanese culture for the workers themselves is absolutely horrible. Is all that suffering worth not losing a bunch of luggage or getting a train exactly the minute you expect? Not for me at least. I think it’s better to cope with imperfections like that than to work in a toxic environment where you can’t leave the office until your boss leaves.
That same culture is the reason why we don’t hear about successful startups from Japan. God forbid there is a single bug in it. But what’s better - to have a software with a bug and not the cleanest code or not to have it at all? Hardware is another story of course. But my point is that there is both good and bad in any culture. Depends on how you look at it
Japan has a long history of simply not reporting things (including serious crimes) because it makes their stats look bad.
Go read some of the japan-related subreddits and they are all full of stories of people getting harassed/assaulted/etc. (or worse) and the police just absolutely refuse to do anything about it. Getting them to file a report for any reason is extremely difficult.
And if someone does end up getting arrested for any reason, the entire judicial system is unfair and unnecessarily cruel and inhumane. They can hold you for up to 23 days with zero reason and zero outside contact. Many innocent people's lives have been completely ruined due to this for no good reason. They viciously interrogate people trying to demand confessions no matter how innocent you might seem, because again, it makes their conviction numbers look good.
Don't get me wrong, I've been to Japan many times and I thoroughly enjoy all the good things about it, but just like every country, there are a number of quite bad things as well.
In my experience, that's far and away the most common scenario. Luggage misses a connection, doesn't get on a flight that has ben changed because of weather, or otherwise ends up somewhere it's not supposed to be. Many airline tracking systems are better than they used to be but AirTags or equivalent are not a bad idea.
I once had SAS lose my luggage on a direct flight from Copenhagen to Tokyo Haneda. I was sure that such a thing was impossible, but I learned an important lesson that day.
Weird things do happen. I was once looking out of an airplane window waiting for takeoff when I saw my suitcase getting offloaded from the hold and taken back to the terminal. Spoke to the crew, who spoke to ground staff, who brought the bag back.
Not the slightest idea what it was all about... (I'm guessing some sort of mix-up in which they thought I'd failed to board?)
I wonder with which companies they partner for those deliveries. Maybe they went with Japan's biggest courier or well, I'm sure they don't do it in house...
I have very fond memories of Kansai airport. First time I went to Japan I ... Uhh, I didn't have a visa despite going there for exchange.
The Kansai airport immigration office uttered a lot of "oohs" and "eehs", but they came through and in less than 45 minutes my appeal for deportation was accepted and I was granted a 1 year student visa. Always makes me happy when I pass through there :)
I don't think this was their "strategy", but more like a "young people are sometimes clueless and fail to take care of necessary things with enough buffer ahead of time" situations.
And that (student + exchange program + in general eligible for a visa) is why it turned out well. Not sure if it still would do so today. The "cheap yen" tourism boom might have brought in money, but also a lot of annoyance with unpleasant tourists amplified by how modern recommendation algorithms work (you see all the rage bait "a tourist behaved mean" and non "normal tourist is polite and does nothing strange") and various propaganda amplifying this. In general there seem to be a ton of "make cities look way worse wrt. safety and cleanliness and blame it on tourists/immigrants/minorities" videos across most western countries in recent times (not just JP, e.g. London has a lot of such nonsense, it's quite safe, but if you ask ticktock it's a lawless crime zone. ).
> Theft From the Person offences have a crime rate of 8.21 reports per 1,000 people in London, which is 4.69 times the national average. This figure is calculated from 87,224 crime reports logged by Metropolitan Police during the 12-month period ending November 2025.
the problem with your source is, that it treats all crime as equal. Like 1x pick pocketing == 1x homicide.
It also ignores tourist, which attacks crime but also mostly very "minor" crime stuff(in places with dynamics like London).
Then it ignores that in areas with larger amount of major crimes (like homicide) minors crimes with limited damages tend to be notoriously under-reported. Like if you police can't even resolve many homicide cases why bother reporting some pick pocketing?
Londons homicide rate 2025 is ~1.1 per 100,000 (97 homicides, with a population around ~9.0M)
Chicago is at 14.6~15 per 100.000 (411~417 homicides depending on source and if you count e.g. homicide in self defense, and ~2.7M population but also estimates differ in the 100_000s)
Chicago has a homicide rate of 2025 is at 14.6 homicides per 100,000.
So no Chicago isn't saver then London at all.
Like think about it it has over 4x the total number of homicides while having less then a third the population.
And sure homicides aren't all what matters, but given previous mentioned issues like minor crime often going unreported in very dangerous areas its a good point to get started with as it puts out a good "worst case bottom line".
What you post is a good example is how by over simplifying statistics you can trivially abuse "facts" to convey a completely wrong meaning.
EDIT: But yes, I'm also over-focusing on homicides here. Mainly due to lack of handling the rate of "unreported" crimes without any deeper research. If you aren't in a failed state or similar most homicides get reported. In addition crime isn't evenly spread over the city and the level of unevenness and placement of hot spots can also make a big difference to how safe it is in practice (as you can often avoid such hot spots).
You probably had a CoE (Certificate of Eligibility to Reside in Japan, 在留資格認定証明書). This piece of paper needs to be taken to your local embassy or consulate and be converted to a visa there, which then gets stamped on your passport.
But Japan is working quite differently from other countries here, so you're probably not the first person to be confused, although I don't think any country issues a long-term visa that is not stamped on your passport.
It sets a verified lower bound on baggage loss. An achieveable ideal that other airports should aspire to.
Lots of orgs claim to aspire to 5 nines of uptime but can barely manage 2 nines. Kansai airport with an average of about 17 million pax/yr [0] hasn't lost any luggage. Losing one item out of, say, 10 million items a year, would be 7 nines.
> In early December, a 35-year-old passenger from Tanzania was impressed to see that all the handles of the suitcases on the conveyor belt in the baggage claim area were facing the passengers.
> After the luggage is unloaded and collected in the cargo handling area upon arrival at the airport, ground support personnel manually align the handles of the bags and place them on the conveyor belt.
That's a level of attention to detail that we should be striving for in everything we build.
I think it also highlights something: better things are possible.
Zero lost suitcases doesn't require magic to achieve. It just requires enough workers or enough time to make sure each worker is able to do their job successfully. Unfortunately financial and time constraints mean that very often there aren't enough workers or enough time, and some passengers suffer.
Also requires a culture of respect for the people who are handling baggage - an important thing lacking in parts of society in the US, where working fast food is used as a pejorative.
The culture bit is the most important. You could add 100x the current headcount at all American airports and because the workers simply don't give a shit about doing good work, because they're treating it as a 9 to 5, where they have to go and suffer through a meaningless 8 hours, or worse, they treat it like their own personal access to other people's stuff to loot at will.
The TSA is security theater, a vast majority of American jobs seem to be competence theater. You only ever tend to see care and craft in small business and actual crafts. It's so rare that it's incredibly refreshing to find anyone in any business that bothers to do good work and take care of the small things.
It's not about respecting the baggage handlers. It's about a culture where you respect yourself such that you are obliged to do the best work you can, whether it's baggage handling, being a CEO, or flipping burgers. Self respect and respect for the job far outweigh any notion of employers or other citizens respecting baggage handlers. They have sophisticated notions of status and face and place in society that are sadly absent in American culture.
You could take the Kansai airport baggage handler team and drop them into any airline in the world, and they'd perform to the same high standard. Take any halfass United Airline baggage team and drop them at Kansai and they'd be breaking guitars, killing dogs, and all the other usual shenanigans just like back at home, and they wouldn't give a flying rat's behind about how their employer respects them or not. They're there for paychecks. Respect doesn't even enter into consideration.
> You could add 100x the current headcount at all American airports and because the workers simply don't give a shit about doing good work, because they're treating it as a 9 to 5, where they have to go and suffer through a meaningless 8 hours, or worse, they treat it like their own personal access to other people's stuff to loot at will.
This places the blame solely on the workers. Their CEO earns a ludicrous multiple of their wage. They are treated like shit and are expendable. It’s a two way street, treat workers with respect and and you might get some respect from them.
Yep. The reason employees don't care about their work is that caring for their work is not valued. Box checkers and opportunists proliferate as loyal craftsmen get screwed over repeatedly.
> You could take the Kansai airport baggage handler team and drop them into any airline in the world, and they'd perform to the same high standard. Take any halfass United Airline baggage team and drop them at Kansai and they'd be breaking guitars, killing dogs, and all the other usual shenanigans just like back at home, and they wouldn't give a flying rat's behind about how their employer respects them or not. They're there for paychecks. Respect doesn't even enter into consideration.
The hypothetical of dropping one baggage team into another airport might be true in an immediate timeframe but it doesn't address the core issue - each team was formed in a completely different society, one values celebrity and quick-buck scamming, one values planting trees that cast shade long after you're dead. Pretending like the influential people who steer the most economic activity aren't to blame at all for that difference in culture is insane, especially when we have a felon president who has been pardoning many high profile fraudsters.
> The hypothetical of dropping one baggage team into another airport might be true in an immediate timeframe but it doesn't address the core issue - each team was formed in a completely different society, one values celebrity and quick-buck scamming, one values planting trees that cast shade long after you're dead.
I'd say it's even simpler than that - new people quickly adjust to their workplace culture. Take any individual "halfass United Airline" baggage handler and drop them at Kansai, and I'd expect that soon after, they'd be "performing to the same high standard" - or they'll get managed out.
But then, there's the other thing - take a large team, or worse, take the managers from a half-ass shop and drop them at Kansai, and it's quite likely that in a year, Kansai will be no better than United.
Years ago I had an argument with my HR director at the time. I Was hiring for a position and I said I was willing to pay what was approximately 10-15% above market for the position at the time. He said he could get me a dozen prospects at the market rate or even ten percent below, that I was wasting my budget. I said, "I don't want the people who will work for that, the people I'm looking for know they're worth more." He repeated he felt I was over paying. I said, "look at my head count, and compare it to our competitors. I have half the staff but higher metrics in every category. You don't hear about major or long lasting IT problems here. I'm paying 115% but I'm getting 150% and overall spending less."
When your people feel respected and compensated, they work far better.
This is it. You’re showing respect for your team, fighting for them and paying them more. When they know that, it surely leads to better work?
> When they know that, it surely leads to better work?
Seems to for me!
> This places the blame solely on the workers. Their CEO earns a ludicrous multiple of their wage. They are treated like shit and are expendable. It’s a two way street, treat workers with respect and and you might get some respect from them.
In southern Ontario there are multiple car factories from various makers. The plants of the Detroit Three are all unionized. There are also plants for Toyota/Lexus and Honda, and after decades of asking, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) or Unifor unions has not unionized them: the employees are not interested.
Seems that the workers don't feel they need a union as a counter-weight to management at Japanese companies.
Them being paid better wouldn't resolve the issue. Updating American culture such that individuals respected themselves, had a sense of shame, operated from a baseline of respect and gratitude for the opportunity to be working in the first place, these things fix the issue. Concurrently, the CEO respecting the workers, the institution, themselves, would result in wages commensurate to their value.
Expecting excellence, putting care and craft into your work, is something that is taught, it doesn't just magically happen.
Paying these same workers more would not noticeably improve outcomes, people would still lose luggage, steal shit, and then have even more money to spend.
The workers and the CEO are products of their culture, and without some sort of specific intervention against the outcomes wrought by those cultural influences, things would continue as before. Serious institutions indoctrinate their members and build a culture oriented around expectations of excellence and care and craft.
Such institutions can't compete in the marketplace we've set up, because it's cheaper to offer shitty service and low product quality, to keep employees expendable, low skill, low paid cogs, and to reward CEOs and management willing to screw over their fellow employees at every opportunity to ensure the number goes up.
That doesn't change unless the culture changes, which would change the regulatory environment, which would allow for things like excellent service and quality to be valued accordingly. America doesn't value excellence, it values "number go up."
I'm interested to hear why you think that better pay wouldn't help the issue. Being comfortable with your living situation and feeling like you're respected in excess of your boss's federal or state legal obligations plays a big role in having the wherewithal to put serious effort into whatever you're doing day to day, and it helps to mitigate the divide between the richest and the poorest among us / bad jokes or insults that originate out of fear of being poor.
> Such institutions can't compete in the marketplace we've set up, because it's cheaper to offer shitty service and low product quality, to keep employees expendable, low skill, low paid cogs, and to reward CEOs and management willing to screw over their fellow employees at every opportunity to ensure the number goes up.
The federal minimum wage has been the same since 2009, but In-N-Out is an example of a company that chooses to avoid blaming the worker or the market or the regulatory environment for all of their business difficulties. They choose to pay well over the California minimum wage, and I don't find it coincidental that I've had better experiences with employees there vs some other fast food locations. Costco has made similar choices with how they treat their employees and they're doing great. No regulation needed, just better leadership.
The CEOs that blame "inevitable" market forces on why they have to treat employees poorly while refusing to look inward will ironically lose out in the market. And at a larger scale, probably the countries too.
It's certainly possible to find people who care about doing a job properly in a western society. Paying a bit more has been suggested on another post as a method of trying to achieve that, but I'd argue that that is necessary but not sufficient. You need to not only pay people a bit more, but also screen them very carefully for the attitude of doing the job properly.
It is a cultural problem. Just paying a bit more won't fix it. By paying a bit more, you might be able to get a larger share of the limited portion of people in the society that care, but you're not changing the people fundamentally, just being more selective.
Couldn’t you start busy treating staff better, rather than making it their fault that they aren’t amazing despite their pay and conditions?
Sorry, it’s acceptable to mistreat luggage because the CEO’s comp is higher than yours?
If your employer treated you like crap, would you do the minimum, or more?
Does the CEO having a higher comp than me mean that I’m being treated like crap?
In a literal sense it means you're not valued.
I’m not valued because the CEO’s TC is higher than mine?
They are paid less.... you know there are rich people in japan?
> Based on recent 2023-2024 data, the average CEO-to-employee pay ratio at major Japanese corporations is roughly 12:1 to 20:1, significantly lower than the 200:1–300:1 ratios seen in the U.S..
Oh why even mention time constraints, we all know damn well it's financial. Every corp on the face of the earth is constantly cost-cutting everything to the bone to justify more bonuses and higher executive compensation, while making sure the service or products provided are just barely good enough where people don't stage outright riots.
In the sixties, the C-suite earned 21 times what the line worker did. In 2024 it's almost 300 times. So every single time you're dealing with a product that's been value-engineered to where it barely functions, or service people paid too little and empowered too little to actually help you, or stuck in a long ass line because they won't hire enough people, or stuck talking to some damn robot because people are expensive, it's beyond a safe bet that you have an executive or several to blame.
We should be spreading our cynicism over both management and customers. There is almost no level of service so terrible that people won't buy cheaper airline tickets. Let alone losing luggage, you could dial up the risk of death and people would still buy the cheaper tickets.
There's also something about the collapse in civility. Or... something. If you asked a plane full of passengers if they'd be happy to get their suitcase 5 minutes earlier even though it meant someone else lost theirs a lot of them would say yes.
I think we can lay the blame for this on the wealthy elites, too. When people see someone better off than them greedily destroying society for their own personal gain, they naturally think "well why not me, too?".
We need shame, really, societal shame that we inflict on those who have to take government benefits, perhaps. Flying an airline that's known to treat their employees like shit should cause the people at the cocktail to look at you strange.
(We kind of have something like this in that shopping at Costco is considered "good" but lots of people won't admit they shop at Walmart - I'm sure they'll be bankrupt soon given how many people don't shop there!)
Not sure if this is sarcasm, but Walmart earnings continue to rise. Being embarrassed to shop at Walmart is largely a coastal elite bubble situation.
For a more applicable example of shame, buying "cheap Chinese crap" is usually looked down on by all demographics or alignments.
That was the joke, everyone (at least in the coastal elite) says they don't shop at Walmart, but they exist everywhere.
Same with "cheap Chinese crap" - everyone decries it, but apparently everyone is also buying it.
What I meant is that most people do admit to shopping at Walmart with no embarrassment. Not the same for buying CCC. They still buy it but they know they shouldn't. Shopping at Walmart isn't like that.
Walmart is pretty much the only big discount store available to many people regardless of their income level unless they have personal shoppers picking stuff up for them. I have a nearby Walmart; the nearest Costco is an hour away and it's a different type of product mix anyway. I don't love shopping at Walmart for a number of reasons but it's convenient for many purposes.
> they exist everywhere...
Not in Seattle. There are zero Walmarts in the city.
Yes, there will always be someone willing to buy on price alone, but that doesn't mean that there aren't also people who will pay more for better service. To wit: Spirit is financially fucked, mainline carriers are in better condition. The existence
I think the real thing is that - in North America at least - there is a pretty good chance that a mainline carrier will treat you poorly, hit you with unexpected fees, jam you into a tiny seat, etc.
For many people, the difference between an ultra-low cost carrier and a mainline carrier is whether they have to walk through first class on the way to their seats. If you are going to get treated like cattle and upsold on everything anyway, might as well save a few bucks.
Given the choice between Singapore Airlines and United, I'll pay extra for SingAir because I KNOW the service will be better. Given the choice between United and Southwest, I'll just get whichever flight makes the most sense since I don't really expect United to offer better service.
> For many people, the difference between an ultra-low cost carrier and a mainline carrier is whether they have to walk through first class on the way to their seats. If you are going to get treated like cattle and upsold on everything anyway, might as well save a few bucks.
That goes beyond airlines and extends to everything. The trend I've been observing in every product and service category is the hollowing out of the middle: the market bifurcates, one part serving the cost-sensitive customers and getting stuck in a race to the bottom, the other serving premium clientele with highest-quality or bespoke goods/services, gravitating towards few customers and "if you have to ask, you can't afford it pricing".
Multiplying volume by margin, "lots of cheap shit" and "few pricey sales" are both sustainable, but the middle segment - "reasonable quality for reasonable price" - is not.
I would argue this is because the middle class itself has been largely hollowed out. Everyone is either a millionaire or on the edge of bankruptcy, no in-between.
I mean, is that a consequence of people being innately, for it's own sake, cheap to a point of farce? Or is that a consequence of fifty years of stagnant wages?
I'm sure it's a healthy blend of both, but IMO, if you want to see this actually change, the first thing to even make it tenable as a possibility is the owning classes need to let some money flow down the hierarchy. Like I'm sure we'll always have our misers, our people who refuse to spend a penny more for anything, but I think the vast majority of the time what drives people to shitty retailers selling crap-quality products is that most people are fucking broke.
> I mean, is that a consequence of people being innately, for it's own sake, cheap to a point of farce?
Yes.
The price-driven market segment will never disappear and is an emergent property of human nature and the dynamics of a marketplace where prices are instantly comparable.
Plane tickets are way more affordable for nearly everyone than they used to be, but price competition is more savage than ever. The marketplace has spoken.
While I agree that concentration of wealth at the top is a major problem, I don't think that shaking loose that wealth will change the price dynamics of the airline industry in the slightest.
Well not every one on the face of this earth as that’s where Kansai airport is located. It happens a lot in America and other places too but not everywhere
Something I noticed when I traveled to Japan was how many workers there were just doing things. Attention to detail is so amazing. Things as simple as guiding people in the sidewalk while construction vehicles exit the site has a person dedicated to it
That sounds more like an attempt to fight with unemployment - any job, even if unnecessary, is better than no job for both finances and mental well-being.
Compared to America where we don't even hire grocery store check out clerks anymore. I'd rather much be in the other boat.
> financial and time constraints
What a passive way to say executives kept a larger share of profits for themselves, forcing workers to be stressed and do a sub-optimal job.
Its like the news reports that say "an officers weapon was discharged and someone died at the scene", rather than "a cop shot and killed a guy".
> What a passive way to say executives kept a larger share of profits for themselves, forcing workers to be stressed and do a sub-optimal job.
This is a very limited view of why things don't work. The main issue in my experience is whether the company values the outcome and ensures focus on optimizing for it. That can include everything from adequate staffing to comp to training to management focus. (A lot of the last one.)
You can spend a huge amount of money and still get a crappy outcome. US healthcare provides a rich field of examples.
US healthcare is a leader in administration fees (e.g. paying health system executives) compared to other countries around the world. High US healthcare cost isn't because of increased usage, but because of the higher admin fees and higher prescription drug prices. Prices are fixed high because law prevents the government from negotiating prices (o.b.o. Medicare/aid), and those provisions were inserted on behalf of pharmaceutical companies so their executives could make more money.
Paying individual workers more may have some benefits, but I think the key issue is usually overworking and burnout because the incremental cost of adding a whole new employee is way higher than just pressuring workers to do more work in the same time.
Also you need to keep organized crime out of airports. Some percentage of lost luggage is actually stolen luggage. Misrouting is also another large percentage. In the US unclaimed lost luggage ends up in some gigantic warehouse in Alabama.
What percentage? I imagine it is insanely low. The risk to reward ratio of making money off a random bag at the airpot has got to be as low, if not lower than, the actual percentage stolen. One thing I've never been worried about it is organized crime, or anyone really, stealing my bag at an airport.
Some airports are more notorious than others. Some suffer very little losses from theft rings, others suffer more.
Ex-employees/employees abusing their access and knowledge to steal:
https://abc7ny.com/post/david-lacarriere-gary-mcarthur-jfk-c...
Theft ring.
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/authorities-kennedy-air...
Other thieving employees.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna22668524
My understanding is it's taken as a given that the authorities at US airports aren't bothering to catch baggage / item thieves amongst airport staff. The only exception is when a firearm (or luggage containing a firearm) goes missing.
> financial and time constraints
I read this as "profit focus"
I call that "hidden inflation", and if I were to guess, the ongoing degradation of services across the board, in every aspect, can easily account for actual inflation figures being half of what it feels they should be.
It's the tiny things. Like, you visit a beauty salon or restaurant today, and compare it to the same or equivalent place 5 years ago. PDF menus instead of paper. Apps for booking instead of support staff. Leaflets where there used to be magazines to browse. No complimentary coffee. Kitchenware that used to be pristine and high-quality, is now the cheapest offering for commercial wholesaler. There's less light, worse decor, no music (or louder music, to boost turnover), worse sound-proofing, etc.
Sure, the prices are the same, or maybe little higher. But the overall quality of service - not just direct service, but whole experience and ambiance - took a nosedive, so you pay a little more, for much less.
You start looking for it, and the slow decay of everything becomes apparent even on the scale of months.
Good points. It's sad--We really need to put checks on capitalism. I think that's the root of our major societal problems, especially in the US.
(I am heartened to see more anti-capitalist comments on HN than ever.)
Very often the financial constraints are merely a euphemism for greed.
I find that the US is the most likely country to have this attention to detail.
As an American who has lived in Japan and traveled around Asia, Europe, and South America, Japan's attention to detail is almost superhuman. From how bathroom lines are managed, packages are wrapped, garden moss is curated, dishes are plated, everything is almost perfect. It's like the level of service in Michelin restaurants, applied down to the lowliest of jobs.
There's nitpicks people will find with a statement like this but I've never found anything like it.
The entire US economy right now is propped up by the idea that we can pay ZERO attention to detail and have the AI do all the work, isn't it?
real world user interface done right
[flagged]
In the airplane industry, KPIs and beancounting are just a response to a mindbendingly price-driven marketplace — to the extent that consumers need to be protected by regulations from flying in unsafe planes.
I agree that there's an issue about western capitalism, but I don't think it's in the tension between middle management and craftspeople who take pride in their work. I think the problems arise at a higher level, with the modern-day aristocracy of the capitalist ownership class and the slice of the pie that they capture.
One of my (two) suitcases was lost once when I flew to Japan. But I didn't have to find out by waiting forever at the conveyor belt until I realized that.
Instead, when I left the airplane a person was there waiting for me, just outside the door, and explained to me that unfortunately one of my suitcases was missing. It was now in Shanghai instead of Japan. The person then walked with me to the immigration area, and then met up with me in the baggage hall afterwards, and took me to the right place to fill out the missing luggage papers, and explaining that if I could give the address of my place to stay in Kanji it would be easier. And the suitcase did arrive at my door the next day.
And, of course, in the baggage area itself.. a person from the airline was standing in front of where the bags come out and preventing them from banging into the side when they came down the slide.
Needless to say, but I've been travelling all over the world for decades and something like the above I've never seen anywhere else. Missed luggage uncountable number of times, many destroyed and damaged suitcases of course.. but that's elsewhere.
I'm pretty sure the last time I flew spirit I saw a handler protecting the suitcases. Either that or another airline, but even then Southwest or United, nothing fancy.
Headline's a bit misleading. They've never permanently lost a bag, and well done to them for that, but they've certainly lost them for periods of time. Just eventually found them.
Permanent losses are pretty uncommon in general. Good for them for minimizing but having bags on the next flight or delayed for a couple/three days is way more common. Probably would have to be stolen which is rare, especially in Japan, I assume or end up in some weird location without a scan.
Was flying into Narita once and I had checked luggage in part because I was carrying an award for a Japanese customer. I was sort of given a "we'll get back to you sooner or later." At which point I explained the situation to a supervisor I think and was much fluttering around and got the bag the next day.
Most of the "permanent losses" are because the passenger gives up or doesn't care terribly much - hence all the luggage at the airline outlet stores.
Most airlines do eventually find the bag, and if you kept in touch they'll usually even get it to where you are, even if you've since returned.
I honestly have no idea how those dynamics work. At some point, the airline presumably pays, travel insurance does, or a combination of the two. At some point if it's just a bunch of old travel stuff, I guess I can see a customer shrugging, collecting the money, and dropping the whole thing.
I'm now imagining a situation in which a customer at the point of successfully making an insurance claim to pay for the nice new clothes they've bought themselves is infuriated to receive an email informing them that Kansai airport has found their luggage and will endeavour to deliver it to a hotel anywhere within the world within two days...
The customer has presumably been paid. If they're smart there's nothing or very little in the suitcase that can't just be replaced. The airline/insurance has paid out and just wants the claim to go away.
As a side-note, had a small kitchen fire with smoke damage last year and it was pretty obvious that, even though they were reasonably generous, the insurance adjuster, cleaning people, movers, etc. just wanted the whole process to go away so they could move on. They objected a bit to a few claims but, for the most part, spending $50K was nothing compared to the claims being reopened.
Once the insurance adjuster is satisfied that you're not scamming them, they're often quite flexible and lenient.
I've only ever had luggage delayed once, they gave me a little bag of toiletries and a couple hundred bucks and a few days later delivered the luggage; never demanded the money back.
I've had luggage delayed many times relative to the amount I actually check luggage.
There were a few insurance policy things that my adjuster pushed back on (no code upgrades) and there were a number of things that would have just been silly for me not to pay for when walls were being repaintedd and opened up. There was a fire inspector because of the size of the claim. But it was pretty reasonable overall--although of people wouldn't have had the available cash to do the whole job as it really needed o be done. And, given that a couple of contractors, saved my butt in the middle of the winter, I wasn't going to push back too hard.
yeah, I've seen this being tossed around, but they definitely lost MY BAGS. Eventually I got them, but they were lost for 5 days or so.
And that's not a permanent loss. It may screw up your trip to a greater or lesser degree but I try to build in buffers at least for a shorter delay when I can. I have also had a few multi-day delays--on of which just caught my guided hiking trip with like an hour to spare. And I had already bought a new duffle bag worth of stuff as best I could.
I know it's not permanent. I'm just agreeing with OP that this is misleading.
I obviously don't know anything about your situation, but the article specifically talks about:
"Lost baggage is when a passenger’s baggage is lost or goes missing due to an error on the part of the [Kansai] airport."
Perhaps in your case they considered the delay to have been due to somebody else's fault?
the article does not discuss what you are saying, do you have an alternative source that tells this true story?
I once flew with ANA to Tokyo/Haneda in First with a rewards-paid ticket for crazy cheap. When I got there and picked up my luggage there was a tag on it, asking me to go to some specific desk. I did. The luggage was a bit janky, but that happens.
They very seriously apologized for breaking my bag. They asked me how much it had cost. I said "around $40, it was just something cheap". A minute later I was sort of ceremoniously handed an envelope with japanese yen notes worth that much.
In Europe, the airlines have broken my checked baggage about 3 times, in places like Vienna, and those had been reasonably solid suitcases.
Obviously, nobody ever offered a compensation.
There is no wonder that such things happen, because at many airports I have seen how the baggage handlers throw the baggage through the air into the vehicles that carry the baggage to the airplanes, even over a distance of a few meters, instead of depositing it gently into the vehicle. Therefore I never put anything fragile in a checked baggage.
When traveling to Japan, I did not have the slightest problem with lost baggage, either at airports, or with the Japanese services that allow you to send your baggage from one hotel to another, to be able to travel more lightly.
However, at the airport, when flying back home I had an unexpected experience. At my final destination, when I retrieved my checked baggage in the airport, it no longer had the padlock that it had at check in, in Japan.
I assume that this happened because at the airport, after check in, they have cut the padlock, to inspect the baggage. I also assume that the inspection was caused by a big kitchen knife that was in the baggage. The kitchen knife had been bought from a shop from Osaka, and it was well sealed inside the original package closed by the shop, but this would not be seen at an X-ray machine.
There was nothing else in the baggage that could be suspicious. In any case, if they inspected the baggage to check the knife, it was done carefully, and the content of the baggage was in the exact same positions as after packing.
I'm only superficially familiar with the Japanese culture, but it somehow feels suprising that they didn't leave an apologetic note explaining that they were forced to destroy the lock and why.
This is reminding me of the story of a Japanese airport doing a full security sweep because one of the airport restaurants had misplaced a kitchen knife.
Why would a knife be a problem in a checked bag, even if it hadn't been sealed in the original package?
I've asked TSA people similar questions when they checked my bag. He said that the item was blocking view of what was underneath it.
I'd guess it's not the packaging, but a big piece of steel blocking the xray view.
The x-ray machine aren't 360?
If 360, I wonder does the operator perhaps not trust it?
CT baggage inspection is (fairly) new and only used in some places like carry-on screening. This was probably a behind-the-scenes belt x-ray planar image where the giant chunk of metal blocked everything underneath, so they kicked the bag out for a quick look somewhere along the line.
It’s not too unsurprising to see bags routinely get re-xrayed in the belt system when they come off of flights back stage.
probably different fidelity of scanner, I'd guess. This was in 2018-2019
Applying cost-cutting analysis as an intellectual exercise...
Airline ticket sales are so price driven that for much of the market, losing some percentage of bags won't change purchase decisions.
I wonder if it's possible to identify which bags are from budget customers and for Kansai Airport to cut corners for those, accepting a certain loss percentage and saving money. It may not be:
> In addition to monitoring bags with sensors, employees also patrol the area to check for dropped bags. According to the airport management company, this additional step significantly reduces the risk of lost baggage.
I think you either patrol for all dropped bags or give up the patrols entirely, assuming that bags from first-class and budget passengers end up in the same area.
Visited Kansai recently and a few things stood out. Passport control was fully automated: just scanned and walked through. Security flagged something in my bag and resolved it really fast without slowing down the line. It's a small thing, but it's the kind of operational detail that makes a real difference. My travel experience has never been smoother. Makes me wonder why more airports don't get this right.
Yes it all comes to the culture. But we need to take into account that Japanese culture for the workers themselves is absolutely horrible. Is all that suffering worth not losing a bunch of luggage or getting a train exactly the minute you expect? Not for me at least. I think it’s better to cope with imperfections like that than to work in a toxic environment where you can’t leave the office until your boss leaves. That same culture is the reason why we don’t hear about successful startups from Japan. God forbid there is a single bug in it. But what’s better - to have a software with a bug and not the cleanest code or not to have it at all? Hardware is another story of course. But my point is that there is both good and bad in any culture. Depends on how you look at it
Japan has a long history of simply not reporting things (including serious crimes) because it makes their stats look bad.
Go read some of the japan-related subreddits and they are all full of stories of people getting harassed/assaulted/etc. (or worse) and the police just absolutely refuse to do anything about it. Getting them to file a report for any reason is extremely difficult.
And if someone does end up getting arrested for any reason, the entire judicial system is unfair and unnecessarily cruel and inhumane. They can hold you for up to 23 days with zero reason and zero outside contact. Many innocent people's lives have been completely ruined due to this for no good reason. They viciously interrogate people trying to demand confessions no matter how innocent you might seem, because again, it makes their conviction numbers look good.
Don't get me wrong, I've been to Japan many times and I thoroughly enjoy all the good things about it, but just like every country, there are a number of quite bad things as well.
My luggage was missing when I landed at KIX.
But it wasn't the airport's fault - my luggage was still in Amsterdam.
Arrived <24 hours later and they delivered it to my hotel in Osaka.
In my experience, that's far and away the most common scenario. Luggage misses a connection, doesn't get on a flight that has ben changed because of weather, or otherwise ends up somewhere it's not supposed to be. Many airline tracking systems are better than they used to be but AirTags or equivalent are not a bad idea.
I once had SAS lose my luggage on a direct flight from Copenhagen to Tokyo Haneda. I was sure that such a thing was impossible, but I learned an important lesson that day.
Weird things do happen. I was once looking out of an airplane window waiting for takeoff when I saw my suitcase getting offloaded from the hold and taken back to the terminal. Spoke to the crew, who spoke to ground staff, who brought the bag back.
Not the slightest idea what it was all about... (I'm guessing some sort of mix-up in which they thought I'd failed to board?)
They lost mine! but they found it and brought it to me 2 days later at my door on the other side of Japan. Mind blowing efficiency
I wonder with which companies they partner for those deliveries. Maybe they went with Japan's biggest courier or well, I'm sure they don't do it in house...
I feel like this is a challenge to me now. I will fly to and from your airport and you will lose my bag.
> Lost baggage is when a passenger’s baggage is lost or goes missing due to an error on the part of the airport.
or at least i don’t want to see the goddamn handle, let me awkwardly turn my suitcase first!
I have very fond memories of Kansai airport. First time I went to Japan I ... Uhh, I didn't have a visa despite going there for exchange.
The Kansai airport immigration office uttered a lot of "oohs" and "eehs", but they came through and in less than 45 minutes my appeal for deportation was accepted and I was granted a 1 year student visa. Always makes me happy when I pass through there :)
You showed up in Japan intending to stay for a year without a visa? Bold strategy :)
Bold strategy :)
I don't think this was their "strategy", but more like a "young people are sometimes clueless and fail to take care of necessary things with enough buffer ahead of time" situations.
And that (student + exchange program + in general eligible for a visa) is why it turned out well. Not sure if it still would do so today. The "cheap yen" tourism boom might have brought in money, but also a lot of annoyance with unpleasant tourists amplified by how modern recommendation algorithms work (you see all the rage bait "a tourist behaved mean" and non "normal tourist is polite and does nothing strange") and various propaganda amplifying this. In general there seem to be a ton of "make cities look way worse wrt. safety and cleanliness and blame it on tourists/immigrants/minorities" videos across most western countries in recent times (not just JP, e.g. London has a lot of such nonsense, it's quite safe, but if you ask ticktock it's a lawless crime zone. ).
> Theft From the Person offences have a crime rate of 8.21 reports per 1,000 people in London, which is 4.69 times the national average. This figure is calculated from 87,224 crime reports logged by Metropolitan Police during the 12-month period ending November 2025.
https://crimerate.co.uk/london
That is more than Chicago.
> In June 2025, there were 631 reported incidents (23.2 per 100,000) – a 49% reduction from the August 2023 peak.
https://counciloncj.org/crime-in-chicago-what-you-need-to-kn...
the problem with your source is, that it treats all crime as equal. Like 1x pick pocketing == 1x homicide.
It also ignores tourist, which attacks crime but also mostly very "minor" crime stuff(in places with dynamics like London).
Then it ignores that in areas with larger amount of major crimes (like homicide) minors crimes with limited damages tend to be notoriously under-reported. Like if you police can't even resolve many homicide cases why bother reporting some pick pocketing?
Londons homicide rate 2025 is ~1.1 per 100,000 (97 homicides, with a population around ~9.0M)
Chicago is at 14.6~15 per 100.000 (411~417 homicides depending on source and if you count e.g. homicide in self defense, and ~2.7M population but also estimates differ in the 100_000s)
Chicago has a homicide rate of 2025 is at 14.6 homicides per 100,000.
So no Chicago isn't saver then London at all.
Like think about it it has over 4x the total number of homicides while having less then a third the population.
And sure homicides aren't all what matters, but given previous mentioned issues like minor crime often going unreported in very dangerous areas its a good point to get started with as it puts out a good "worst case bottom line".
What you post is a good example is how by over simplifying statistics you can trivially abuse "facts" to convey a completely wrong meaning.
EDIT: But yes, I'm also over-focusing on homicides here. Mainly due to lack of handling the rate of "unreported" crimes without any deeper research. If you aren't in a failed state or similar most homicides get reported. In addition crime isn't evenly spread over the city and the level of unevenness and placement of hot spots can also make a big difference to how safe it is in practice (as you can often avoid such hot spots).
I may have not properly read the paper that said "This is not a visa, you should apply for a visa using this paper"...
You probably had a CoE (Certificate of Eligibility to Reside in Japan, 在留資格認定証明書). This piece of paper needs to be taken to your local embassy or consulate and be converted to a visa there, which then gets stamped on your passport.
But Japan is working quite differently from other countries here, so you're probably not the first person to be confused, although I don't think any country issues a long-term visa that is not stamped on your passport.
How is this stat even useful?
It sets a verified lower bound on baggage loss. An achieveable ideal that other airports should aspire to.
Lots of orgs claim to aspire to 5 nines of uptime but can barely manage 2 nines. Kansai airport with an average of about 17 million pax/yr [0] hasn't lost any luggage. Losing one item out of, say, 10 million items a year, would be 7 nines.
[0] https://www.kansai-airports.co.jp/en/business/in-figures/
High Trust Society!
it't not lost until you stop looking for it :D
[dead]
> doesn't have that problem by construction
Well no, but it does have other significant construction problems! https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/japans-20b-kansai-airport...
>doesn't have that problem by construction.
Thanks, going to borrow your words there for my civil engineering friends.
Except Kansai has two terminals, but it's possible that each terminal's baggage processing is handled independently.