Luggage left behind at Schiphol Airport a continuing problem

Luggage left behind at Schiphol Airport has proven to be an ongoing problem, and neither the airport nor Dutch airline KLM has been able to say whether the situation has improved over the last month. "It just remains very busy, also with the suitcases," a KLM spokesperson said in response to questions about the matter.

The company was not willing to provide hard data, because, "on a daily basis, a number of suitcases is always left behind." Additionally, this figure changes constantly, where one day there will be more, and the next day there will be less, the spokesperson said.

In an earlier response, Schiphol referred to the airlines for those figures. "Luggage is constantly returned to its owner, but pieces of baggage can also be added. We help airlines and their handlers in solving the problems. We do this by making our own people available for each handler to sort and safely store left behind luggage." Schiphol would not say more about the problem.

The airport itself came up with figures halfway through last month, when there was a total of about 1,500 leftover suitcases. A few weeks before that, at the height of the chaos at Schiphol Airport, anywhere from 8,000 to 10,000 suitcases remained in the baggage areas.

There are several causes for the suitcase problem, Schiphol said last month. First, the shortage of available workers on the labor market is affecting the airport. The staff shortage makes it less likely that luggage will be placed on or removed from an airplane in a timely fashion.

People are also standing in line longer than usual, which results in missed flights. In that case, luggage must also be removed from the aircraft. Sometimes passengers board a plane very late, but their suitcases have already been removed from the cargo hold.