These airlines get the most lost and damaged luggage complaints, apparently (2024)

You crawled into a taxi at an ungodly hour, had an average coffee in the departure lounge, and your flight might have been a bit delayed — but it’s okay, you’ve landed and the holiday has begun. Or has it?

Some of us will recall the dread that sets in when you anxiously wait at the carousel for what feels like an eternity, only to see your suitcase trundle around in considerably worse shape than when you departed. If it’s there at all, that is.

To shed some light on how to avoid this inconvenience on your next trip, Forbes has compiled a list of the airlines that have received the most complaints over lost or damaged luggage in the last five years.

Ranking in first place is budget airline Ryanair, with over 950 luggage complaints between 2018 and 2022, followed by British Airways with 844, and easyJet with 565.

The Civil Aviation Authority, whose data was used in this study by Forbes, said that airlines are responsible for covering losses when your hold baggage goes missing or is damaged. Here’s what to do if your luggage gets lost or damaged.

However, it should be noted that the study doesn’t factor in the number of passengers each airline serves.

A spokesperson from easyJet said to This Is Money that ‘incidents of delayed baggage are extremely low and reports by World Tracer, the independent system used by the industry for luggage tracking, show that easyJet has one of the best performances in the industry.’

Ryanair also challenged the study’s methodology, highlighting that Forbes did not acknowledge passenger volume. ‘Ryanair operates over 3,200 daily flights across more than 230 destinations and leads the industry with fewest lost bags – one bag mishandled per almost 10,000 passengers,’ said one representative.

That being said, these are the 10 airlines with the most luggage complaints in the last five years, according to Forbes.