What happens to things you forget on the plane?

It is a little known fact that, unlike your luggage, airliners are not responsible for your hand-luggage.

The system of returning lost items varies from company to company, but the usual procedure is for the passenger to report the lost item by phone or online. If the company locates the item, the passenger needs to prove their identity using the ID card or the plane ticket.

Some airliners allow passengers to search the lost items in their database. Heathrow and some other British airports list all the items lost on airplanes within a common database, which can be browsed at missingx.com.

Even so, the fee for returning a lost item is around EUR 20.

If no one claims an item in 90 days, it is usually recycled, donated to a humanitarian organization, destroyed or auctioned.

In the U.S.A, items from never-claimed suitcases are sold from a warehouse.

The most frequently lost items are:

1. iPads

2. Mobile phones

3. Neck pillows

4. Clothes

5. Sunglasses

6. Ebooks

7. Cameras

8. Water bottles

9. Passports

10. Toys for children

items lost on the plane

forgotten luggage

forgotten hand luggage