STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Spring break isn’t too far away, and people will soon be flocking to the airport, baggage in hand, to get away and unwind.

Any seasoned traveler knows there’s no guarantee that a checked bag will make it to their destination, and the loss of luggage can sink a perfectly good vacation.

A recent report from Stacker, a data journalism website, looked at which major airlines are getting worse when it comes to mishandling luggage.

The report used data collected by the federal Department of Transportation (DOT) about bags that have been lost, delayed or damaged by airlines.

A majority of airlines will declare a bag lost between five and 14 days after the flight, according to the DOT,

One constant found by the research team is that the larger the airline, the worse the luggage service was in 2024.

While overall there were fewer misplaced bags in 2024 than in 2023, some of the biggest airlines in the country got worse when it came to losing luggage, the researchers found.

Researchers found that American Airlines was the worst offender. In 2024 the airline lost 296,570 bags, representing just over 10 being mishandled for every 1,000 pieces of luggage.

While this figure is already concerning, it also represented an increase of over 36,000 bags when compared to the number lost in 2023.

Behind American Airlines, the Alaska Airlines Network misplaced 62,515 pieces of luggage in 2024, according to the numbers. This was an increase of over 8,900 lost bags when compared to the year prior.

To round out the worst offenders, Delta Air Lines lost 159,524 bags in 2024, over 5,000 more than in 2023, the report stated.

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