As co-founder and CXO of CityUnscripted and a frequent traveller, I've noticed an alarming rise in luggage left behind. Some travelers purchase larger suitcases during their trip in order to bring home the materials of a culture workshop and what they buy from artisans. Recent trips have shown orphaned luggage in Tokyo hotels and a 30% rise over two years in abandoned bags in Barcelona. Others consider it cheaper to abandon bags than pay surplus fees and treat luggage as disposable. Airlines are clamping down on size regulations and hiking fees, making it more appealing to buy new luggage. Abandoned bags have to be held by hotels for anywhere between 30 and 90 days before they can get rid of (or donate) them, unclaimed luggage that's left at an airport goes into auction after a certain period. Tourists in Japan, for example, shop as a cultural activity and are also prone to purchase a great number of souvenirs, but limited hotel storage makes discarding stuff sound appealing — all while contending with social norms against wasting. Rising luggage tariffs generate a perverse incentive for abandonment: disposers now subsidize the costs of disposal, while dumping remains profitable. This leads to the unnecessary waste of the environment. Travelers are going to have to come to grips with taking less baggage, utilize expandable FlyLites and maybe even ship belongings internationally; to help against local financial and environmental waste.
Hello, I am Xianna Bengo, reaching out on behalf of Stasher CEO Jacob Wedderburn-Day. Below is his expert insight on the increasing trend of luggage abandonment: How common luggage abandonment has been, and is becoming? "In Japan, it's growing considerably. Although fewer than 10% of the bags are actually retrieved by their owners, Kansai Airport dealt with 816 abandoned bags in fiscal 2024 versus 716 in fiscal 2019. Our network has handled over a million bags, and we are familiar with the logistical trends influencing abandonment decisions." The reason behind the abandonment: "The primary motivators are practical and economic. Many tourists just get rid of old bags because it is not very expensive to buy new, bigger bags, especially when airlines start to charge extra for the size and quantity of bags." Are airlines, hotels, or airports seeing more of this? "Terminal 3 of Haneda Airport recorded 1.5 times more abandoned suitcases discarded than during pre-pandemic days. Hotels receive one or two suitcases left behind every month by guests without the staff being notified." What becomes of lost bags and how much it costs to store? "Airports retain bags as lost luggage for three months, after which they are destroyed, but officials have said that securing storage space is the biggest concern and disposal of lost baggage also costs them considerably. Hotels have disposal charges of approximately $12.85 per item, although some are coming up with unique alternatives such as repurposing stray suitcases as planters." Could rising luggage fees be making the problem worse, and what are the implications for consumers? "Though fewer were in the air, bag fees increased 17% to $6.8 billion in 2022, and airlines charged a record $148 billion in fees total in 2024. It is smart financially to purchase brand-new bags at home when airlines are going to be charging extra for extra bags. Today's consumers view luggage as disposable items instead of reusable travel equipment, and that's a change in mentality. The trend accounts for the influence that excessive airline charges have on aviation behaviors and generating operation problems for the hospitality industry and ecological side impacts." If you need more in-depth information on any aspect of this trend, feel free to ask. Best regards, Xianna
How Common is This and What's Driving It? Unlike abandoning a rental car, there's no immediate financial penalty or tracking for a suitcase. Because of the lack of real accountability (or consequences), many people see their left suitcase as a victimless crime, when the real "cost" is ultimately absorbed or recirculated to the revenue-generating airport and travelers, with travelers ultimately bearing that cost. What Happens to Abandoned Bags and The Cost Factor? There's administrative overhead associated with left behind baggage, even if not insignificant for airports, hotels, and moving companies. Staff must spend time cataloging, tagging, and tracking these items, which diverts labor away from revenue-generating activities. That is substantial overhead that the organization must either absorb or account for as part of its operating and service fees. At our moving company, we also incur costs for items that clients unexpectedly leave behind in a storage unit or on our truck. We have to spend time and labor to process, store, and eventually dispose of them, costs that we ultimately have to absorb or pass on to consumers through our service rates. Are Rising Luggage Fees Making it Worse? Yes, the rising luggage fees charged by airlines are a primary accelerator of this trend of suitcase abandonment. When an airline charges $50, $75, or even $100 for a checked bag, that bag suddenly has a very clear and substantial price tag attached to it. If a traveler can purchase a new, serviceable suitcase for a similar price at their destination, the incentive to keep the old one diminishes significantly. It is a vicious cycle: airlines raise fees to increase revenue, abandonment rises, operational costs increase for airports/hotels, which could lead those places to raise their prices, after which the consumer winds up paying disproportionate charges in the end. Implications for Consumers As luggage abandonment continues, the Airlines, Airports, and travel companies will come to all travelers with strict rules, regulations, such as stricter luggage screening or another bigger hassle, in order to check additional bags documentation. Ultimately, this falls on the consumer with additional inconveniences and delays in their travel experience.
I have actually done this firsthand in Japan, where I left an old suitcase with the hotel's consent after purchasing a new one. Japan has an amazing selection of high-quality, reasonably priced luggage, and sometimes the offerings are even better than what you could find in the States. It is often logical to drag an older suitcase packed with items and fill it with new, lighter purchases or souvenirs that you have acquired during your travels. The trade-off is practical: you avoid those extra bag fees for carrying two, and the hotel saves on disposal by reusing or donating your old one. It's a discreet, mutually beneficial friendship that is more common than most people assume. I could see this trend moving elsewhere, particularly as airlines continue to up their checked and even carry-on fees. Travelers are becoming more strategic about what they bring and how they bring it, and swapping out luggage mid-trip is one way to adapt. When you leave a bag behind, always check with the hotel first—some hotels will take it if it is usable, but others will not. As a result of such a habit, we've increasingly come to view travel gear as more of a disposable item that we can upgrade when the time seems right.
I have witnessed how minor changes in consumer conduct lead to major outcomes and luggage abandonment stands out as an interesting example. Travelers tend to discard their old suitcases when bag fees become too expensive because they need the space for new acquisitions. The traveler's temporary convenience from abandoning their case results in the item disappearing from existence. The responsibility for handling abandoned luggage falls on airports and hotels since they need to store it and either donate or recycle or dispose of it while paying all associated costs. The travel industry economy faces increased expenses because of these costs spread through the entire system. The actual narrative extends past lost luggage because industry decisions create a chain reaction throughout the entire system. The airline industry introduced higher baggage fees to boost profits yet failed to predict the additional costs of handling unclaimed luggage. Hotels and airports have developed innovative solutions to manage abandoned luggage through reuse programs and recycling initiatives and redistribution systems. The business world teaches us that every business decision creates multiple effects which spread throughout the organization. The airline fee for extra margin generation has generated new operational expenses which affect both hospitality facilities and passenger travel experiences. The small travel peculiarity of luggage abandonment teaches a broader business lesson which most people are unaware of. The practice of luggage abandonment demonstrates how customers develop innovative solutions when businesses implement excessive fees and additional charges. Customers develop unanticipated solutions to deal with pressure which later transforms into dominant market trends. Travelers use the practice of "cutting loose" their baggage as a way to avoid increasing fees which airlines have implemented. Leaders need to understand that pursuing short-term financial gains through certain revenue strategies will ultimately harm their business when they fail to recognize changing consumer behaviors.
Hello there! I have myself abandoned my suitcase on a trip to Japan. I had one of the wheels break, and once I got to the hotel, I decided that I wanted to buy a new one from this new Japanese company which kept sending me advertisements. Unfortunately, I didn't really think about what to do with the old one until the morning I had to leave, and everything else on my mind I ended up just leaving it with the bellhop. I told them I'd be back for it, but then didn't return. Things happen so I hope it got up-cycled!
The increase in intentional luggage abandonment is due to the high fixed-cost pricing airlines charge customers. Travelers engage in a simplified cost-benefit analysis: they check and/or overweight baggage fees which are higher than their baggage contents value, they leave behind their bags. This creates a huge logistical and security concern for airports, and eventually the airport has to spend a significant amount of money in caring for, storing and ultimately disposing these valuables. I witness this each day as a lawyer how individuals make unnecessarily economically punitive decisions. This is a business model which is reliant on excess fees. The passenger travels a trip-tional system "with an airline", and layers of fees rope them into the total cost of also, places the passenger in a position of choice, between their luggage and an exorbitant fee. This is a poor reflection of the inequity of travel industry, and consumers at large.
In 2017, I left a carry-on bag behind in Osaka because I had somewhat misjudged how much I could fit in a suitcase on a business trip that had turned into a shopping trip. I shopped for electronics, traditional pottery, and an unreasonable number of snacks from Don Quijote! At Kansai Airport, the airline charged me Y=15,000 ($135 or so at the time) for excess baggage, and my brief accounting showed I could buy a bag when I got back home for $40. The airport had designated areas where you could leave luggage, almost as if they expected to see that type of behavior. The staff person hardly reacted when I asked what to do. So, for me, that was a strange phenomenon because in the United States, luggage abandonment is viewed as a security concern. Japan is unique in the sense that there is a culture of traveling domestically that drives people to buy souvenirs as a social responsibility; you are expected to buy omiyage for coworkers, family, and friends (which I really learned about again recently when I was recently in a Japanese context). And tourists to Japan underestimate how much they will buy, which is what gives us completed abandonment. JAL asserted that by 2019, they had identified over 3,000 items of unclaimed luggage annually just at Tokyo Narita. You can imagine the cost to dispose of abandoned luggage is quite significant. Airports typically auction items, donate them to charity, or incinerate them after about 90 days, spending millions of dollars on warehousing costs.
I recall a trip to Tokyo for sourcing when I came across heaps of bags that were still usable piled up at the desk of my hotel while the staff explained that no one picked them up. Guests had bought new bags to bring home souvenirs or hadn't wanted to pay to bring their old bag back with them on the plane. Honestly, I thought about the behavior of locals in relation to packaging waste back in Shenzhen; when disposal costs becomes too high, people consider their lowest cost disposal--often the disposal of an item as they walk away from it. The problem faced by hotels and airlines is they are left with the cost and some in the industry will take a risk and quietly resell or recycle luggage to attempt to subsidize actions they did not plan for and can't afford. If checking a bag costs I'll bet this behavior will become more common. For the consumer it means more hard to see costs, so it is just better to all think about the luggage space you have available as you do with buying decisions, or pay for it twice.
Last year while in Tokyo, I left behind a beat-up carry-on at the hotel after purchasing a larger suitcase for electronics I had bought. The staff didn't seem to care, which I couldn't believe until it became clear that this is a pretty common occurrence. It's not just about the overflow of souvenirs. Airlines charge $35-70 for checked bags domestically and in Asia, the ultra-low-cost carriers take it all the way up. A traveler can do the math and decide that they can either buy a bag for $40 or pay the airline bag fees, both ways. I have led projects where we would research customer behavior. This follows predictable cost/benefit logic. For hotels, they simply take on the majority of the disposal cost, which is generally a couple of dollars through waste management contracts, but I'm fairly confident that it's probably even more than double that for airports due to baggage protocols in response to security. Some hotels in Japan have even gone so far as to add multilingual signage warning guests about disposal costs. Now, I'm not only concerned with the landfill waste. From an SEO and digital marketing perspective, I have seen increased search volume around 'cheap luggage near the airport' and 'luggage shipping services.' We are clearly heading towards a systematic problem. The airlines created this by monetizing every facet of travel. There are now also bag storage facilities in Osaka and Kyoto, and while they are looking to resell bags, that merely addresses the symptom, rather than the cause. The question remains. Will they realize that they programmed travelers to create a disposable mindset around essential travel products?