Hi there, JFC-ers!

Now that the cobwebs and cauldrons have been packed away for another year, we’re all (avoiding?) thinking about the festive season. In JFC land, that means hunting down cheap flights to Christmas markets and looking for the best spots to catch the northern lights.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but this year, all signs are pointing to Norway. Everywhere I scroll on Instagram, Visit Norway targets me with another funny or interesting video. I come to work, and SAS drops another sale. 

Having only visited for the first time last year, spending a long weekend in Bergen and the nearby fjords with my mum, I’ve barely scratched the surface. Oslo seems like the logical place to start, but I’m also drawn to the country’s extremes.

I like the sound of catching a train north to Trondheim then on to Bodø, before hopping on a ferry over to the rugged Lofoten Islands. Or maybe going via Lapland to get as far north as possible, to Nordkapp. 

And then there’s Svalbard, which has been on my to-visit list for years — admittedly, probably since I was a kid reading the His Dark Materials trilogy, and I didn’t even realise it was a real place. For now, I’m settling for living vicariously through Instagrammer Cecilia, who shares clips of her daily life on the archipelago. But that has to change!

So please, dear readers, if you’ve got any Norway tips to throw my way, please do get in touch! As always, I’ll share all your advice here to help you make the most of any awesome flights that come your way. 

Happy travels,

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You know the scene: you’ve passed through border control and made it to the final hurdle before freedom — baggage claim. You head towards the carousel and spot a few suitcases sitting on the static carousel. That was fast, how did they manage to unload them already? You catch a glimpse of a tag and realise: this bag hasn’t just arrived, it has been… abandoned.

I’ve often wondered why those bags are left. How does that even happen? At what point does a bag become “unclaimed,” and what happens next? 

Why might a bag go unclaimed?

Well, there are a few reasons why you might spot a bag riding solo on the world’s saddest merry-go-round.

Firstly, sometimes we just forget to pick them up. It might sound crazy, but in the midst of all the different processes we go through when arriving at an airport, collecting that bag you’ve not seen for hours may just slip your mind. And once you leave baggage claim, you’ve passed the point of no return!

Next, we come to the genuine errors that might leave a bag lonesome. If you’ve ever travelled with an incredibly neutral, black suitcase, you’ll know that it can often be hard to recognise. Add time pressure and lack of sleep to the situation, and you might just grab the wrong case. Presuming your bag twin doesn’t make the same error, your bag will be left to go it alone. 

Mistakes can happen back of house, too. Sometimes, a bag will simply end up on the wrong luggage belt and go unnoticed. Or if the tag comes off in transit, it can be a struggle for baggage handlers to even get it that far! That simple sticky label contains everything from your personal details to departure times and airport codes, and without it, things get complicated.

With every connection, there’s an increased possibility that you and your bag will no longer be in sync. Usually, it’s the case that we passengers manage to dash through an airport to catch our next flight, but our suitcase doesn’t make it. In that case, your bag will (hopefully!) arrive with the following flight, before being loaded onto the carousel and sit unclaimed until the airport arranges delivery (again, hopefully!).

Sometimes, though, our cases reach our destination before us. If you miss your connecting flight due to security or immigration queues, or you’re denied entry to the country, there’s every chance your bag will win the race. All we can do is cross our fingers that it’s sitting in Lost Luggage awaiting your arrival when you do get there!

What happens once a bag goes unclaimed?

An unclaimed case will typically be kept in the airport’s lost luggage for up to 5 days in the hopes that an owner will come knocking, or the airline will redirect it. After that point, it’s off to the great sea of lost luggage in a central warehouse. Bags are held there for around 3 months, juuuuust in case it’s identified as a legit piece of missing baggage with an owner longing to be reunited. Under 0.03% of all checked bags don’t find their way home by this point.

The good news is that orphaned attire doesn’t languish in a warehouse forever. You might have seen advertisements for lost bag auctions and heard tales of how you won’t know what you’ve got until you buy and open it. Sounds fun, but in truth, it’s usually much less of a gamble these days. 

In the USA, many unclaimed items are acquired by the aptly named Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro, Alabama. The team there sifts through everything that comes in to work out what can be resold, what should be donated, and what is destined for recycling. The items that make the cut are washed, polished, and valued before being released into the largest shop of its kind.

As well as countless unmentionables, they’ve come across some pretty interesting pieces of luggage over the years. We’re talking Egyptian burial masks, an intricately carved tribal walking stick, a French newspaper from 1934, to name but a few. My luggage certainly wouldn’t be that intriguing, but I like to think some of it would at least make it to the sale racks!

In the UK, lost luggage does still tend to end up going to auction, but you’re unlikely to find anything particularly valuable inside once you buy it. According to MoneySavingExpert, all bags are checked to ensure that the contents are legal before they are listed, and items such as electronics are removed.

It may be that the suitcase itself is the most valuable part of the lot. If that’s what you’re in the market for, you can avoid the clothing gamble by bidding on a bag from auction houses like Wellers, who only sell empty luggage. For some people, the allure is in the unboxing itself — for that, you’ll want to head to Greasby’s in London.

Auctions seem to be the most common approach to dealing with unclaimed bags across Europe, too. Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport has been holding four auctions a year for over a decade, while airports across Germany regularly whip one up for special occasions. 

In fact, if you happen to be in Stuttgart this weekend, the airport is celebrating its 100th birthday by auctioning off 100 bags for charity! Somehow we suspect the travel and restaurant vouchers hidden inside some of them were not always there…

One thing that does seem clear from all our digging is that airports don’t sell lost luggage via social media. That might sound obvious, but this past year has seen lots of scam ads popping up online — so don’t fall for them!

So there you have it, readers, the fate that awaits those unclaimed bags. And if you’ve ever wondered what happened to your own lost luggage, now you know! 

Would you ever buy unclaimed luggage at auction? Is it a bit of fun, or is it actually a bit morbid to be raking around another person’s drawers? I’d love to hear from anyone who’s actually done it, too — especially if you found something unexpected. Just hit ‘Reply’ to get in touch.