'Toss the bag' and other games airport staff play with your luggage

From careless tossing and forceful chucking, we look at some ways airport workers have been caught mistreating passengers' bags

As an airline issued an apology after baggage handlers were filmed playing the game of ‘toss the bag’ at Mineta San Jose International Airport in California, we look at other instances when airport workers were captured on video mistreating travellers' luggage.

Two baggage handlers at Riyadh airport in Saudi Arabia were caught on video carelessly hurling fragile luggage onto a conveyor belt in April this year.

Authorities said two supervisors and three workers had been sacked since the video surfaced online. It has been viewed around 80,000 times.

Ground staff at the Milan Bergamo Airport in Italy were caught throwing baggage onto a

Ryanair aircraft last year, filmed by a passenger on another plane nearby. Back in 2008, one YouTube user uploaded a worrying video of a baggage worker from an unnamed airport slamming a series of bags onto a conveyor belt, while some were thrown onto the ground In 2009, a passenger on a Continental Airlines flight at Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey filmed a baggage handler “abusing the passengers’ luggage” in an “appalling” way by forcefully throwing bags off of a conveyor belt near the plane.
The worker appeared to change her demeanor after she seemed to have been alerted by another worker that passengers have been watching her all along.
In 2011, another YouTube user posted a video of another baggage handler for Continental Airlines doing more of the same, while another furiously threw a series of boxes onto a cart, showing no sign of care or caution. One video of a small suitcase left behind on the grounds of the airport apron at Dallas Forth Worth International Airport highlighted the obliviousness and apathy of ground staff, as a worker drives past the suitcase which appeared to be clearly in view of his path. One of the most creative reactions to the growing issue of mistreated luggage was by the musician Dave Carroll, a United Airlines passenger whose $3,500 guitar was found severely damaged when he arrived at his destination in Omaha, Nebraska. Fellow passengers on the flight had claimed baggage handlers were seen throwing guitars around during a stopover in O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.
• Praise for the airport that never loses your luggage
The issue led Mr Carroll to file a compensation claim with United Airlines that was rejected for not having been filed within 24 hours of the incident, which was apparently the airline’s standard policy for such claims.
Unsatisfied, to say the least, with the airline’s response, Mr Carroll wrote a trilogy of songs titled “United Breaks Guitars”, the first of which was released in July of 2009 and was the number one song on iTunes in the week following its release.

Travel 15:48