The Japanese airport that says it never loses a bag

This picture taken on September 3, 2024 shows a staff member transferring baggages into a Cathay Pacific flight for departure in Kansai International Airport of Osaka Prefecture. – Kansai International Airport in Japan can’t be held responsible for the less superlative performance of airlines or other stops in a traveller’s journey, but it claims its handlers never lose a bag. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)

Izumisano, Japan — Kansai International Airport in Japan can’t be held responsible for the less superlative performance of airlines or other stops on a traveller’s journey, but it claims its handlers never lose a bag.

In 30 years of operation, the airport serving the region around Osaka and Kyoto says it has never lost a suitcase, a set of golf clubs, a stroller or anything in fact — a feat its employees humbly shrug off as nothing special.

“We just follow the work processes and rules and do what we have to do,” Tsuyoshi Habuta, supervisor at CKTS, one of the handling companies at Kansai, told AFP.

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There is no “special training” but Habuta and his teams handle more than 3,000 pieces of luggage every day with attention to detail.

“We carefully handle suitcases to avoid shocks. Suitcase handles are aligned in a direction that is easy for customers to pick up,” Habuta said.

“We hand fragile items, strollers, surfboards and skis directly to passengers,” he said.

Luggage is on the carousel inside in the terminal building “within 15 minutes of the aircraft’s arrival to minimize stress of customers,” he added.

One of Japan’s busiest international airports, Kansai was ranked the World’s Best Airport for Baggage Delivery by UK-based airport rating organization SKYTRAX in April.

“Everyone at the Kansai Airport is proud of this,” co-CEO of the airport Benoit Rulleau told AFP.

Rulleau acknowledged that it is easier to achieve zero lost bags at an airport such as Kansai, which serves relatively few connecting passengers.

But he said the achievement reflects the “incredible devotion” of the airport’s staff.

The number of lost or delayed bags has sharply decreased globally in the past decade thanks to technology, said Nicole Hogg, baggage portfolio director at SITA, a Geneve-based IT services provider in the air transport industry.

“If you think about the passenger volumes that we have, 6.9 bags being mishandled (per 1,000 passengers) is a very low figure,” Hogg told AFP.

“A decade ago, we were in double figures,” she said, adding “the industry investing in technology is definitely paying off.”

She explained that baggage is rarely mishandled when passengers have no connections.

“The complexity really comes in the transfer process where passengers have short connection times and they’re trying to get from one flight to another,” she said.

Kansai recently returned to its pre-pandemic level of 25 million international passengers a year.

Ahead of the Osaka Expo 2025 it has gone through a renovation with a new security checkpoint that allows for an even smoother experience.

Rulleau said the airport will be able to accommodate up to 40 million passengers a year — and probably none of them will lose their bag.