(USA): Beware the airport baggage thieves
Wednesday, 29 Apr 2009
Source: Oregon Live
Date: 29/4/2009
Description: Beware the airport baggage thieves
Beware the airport baggage thieves
by The Oregonian editorial board
Wednesday April 29, 2009, 4:47 PM
A couple of startling surprises stand out in reports about an airline baggage-handler theft ring broken up by police earlier this year at Portland International Airport.
One is the revelation that travelers pack so many valuables in their checked luggage. Investigators recovered hundreds of pilfered items ranging from laptops and digital cameras to jewelry and designer handbags -- pricey stuff that really ought to be carried aboard by passengers.
The other surprise is that the alleged looting by two Northwest Airlines baggage handlers went on for at least two years under the very noses of company managers. The thievery was discovered only when a baggage supervisor, now accused of being part of the scheme, reported it to police when she was no longer getting her share of the loot, court affidavits say.
Delta Air Lines, Northwest's parent company, clearly has some baggage-security issues, and they aren't limited to PDX. Last month, police broke up a similar theft ring involving eight Delta baggage handlers at the airport in St. Louis.
It's not just a Delta problem, however. Baggage handlers under contract for most of the major airlines have been busted on theft charges at airports in every corner of the country in the past two years. From the time the federal Transportation Security Administration began requiring checked luggage to be unlocked in 2003, the agency has received nearly 70,000 complaints of pilfering from bags.
And don't blame TSA screeners, the agency insists, sounding a tad defensive.
"Remember," an agency spokesman told Newsweek last year, "TSA has possession of the bag only long enough to screen it for explosives ... We estimate that for every TSA employee that touches a bag, six to 10 airline or airport employees and contractors touch the same bag out of the view of passengers."
That's how bags were looted in the PDX operation. A Northwest Airlines handler would open them in an unmonitored "employee break" area, remove valuable items, sneak them into a personal locker and share a portion of them with his supervisor, court records say.
Police cracked the case after installing surveillance cameras and catching one of the suspects in the act. That seems pretty much like the kind of surveillance an airline ought to be already providing for the security of its customers' possessions.
Many travelers have begun using newly developed luggage locks that can be opened by TSA security officers using universal master keys. Such locks, though now approved for checked baggage, shouldn't give anyone a false sense of security, though, because the TSA has fired nearly 500 of its own officers for theft since 2003.
That's really just a small fraction of the enormous agency's ranks, but it nevertheless reinforces the best advice of all: Take your iPod and Coach handbag on the plane with you, and never pack anything tempting in your checked luggage.