One of the most common questions I get asked during my Travelers Aid volunteer shifts at Washington Dulles International Airport concerns baggage. Many international travelers changing flights at Dulles ask if they need to recheck their baggage. I generally ask to see their baggage check receipt and show them their bags have been checked through to their final destination.

Passengers arriving at Dulles from overseas must go through customs and immigration, and if transferring to a domestic flight, must also go through a TSA checkpoint for a security screening. After completing customs and immigration, the passengers put their suitcases on a conveyor belt for “baggage recheck” on their connecting flight.

One passenger during my last volunteer shift found the baggage recheck process confusing. He thought the conveyor belt was a baggage screening machine and he would see all the baggage on the other side of the machine. However, the recheck belt goes in a different direction from the passengers. He had put his briefcase and hand luggage on the belt in addition to his checked baggage. When everything disappeared, he was unsure what to do. He approached my desk and explained what happened. I suggested he go back to where the conveyor belt was and explain to the agent what happened and ask the agent to retrieve his carry-on baggage. When he came back upstairs, he was happier than the first time. The agent had indeed retrieved his bags. But the agent also related this happens very often, and people put their lunch, food and all sorts of things on the conveyor belt, never to see them again.

Photo 101537054 / Airport Baggage © Tyler Olson | Dreamstime.com

At Dulles, arriving international passengers have two choices for the customs and immigration process. If Washington is their final destination, they go to the main customs and immigration facility in the main terminal. If they are connecting to a domestic flight, they go to the customs and immigration facility in the midfield terminal. One family whose final destination was Washington went to the facility for passengers transferring to a domestic flight. However, their baggage was sent to the main terminal location. After a visit to the United service desk, they were given a baggage receipt and told to go to the main terminal to pick it up. United Airlines would clear the bags through customs and deliver them to one of their domestic baggage carousels.

A third baggage adventure befell a couple traveling from Tel Aviv to San Francisco on Austrian Airlines via Vienna. In Vienna they were to transfer to a non-stop flight to San Francisco. Unfortunately, they missed their connection. The airline agents in Vienna hustled them onto a flight to Washington Dulles with a connecting flight to San Francisco. They made the flight to Dulles, but their baggage didn’t and was nowhere to be found. I suggested they visit the United service desk, and perhaps United had access to the computerized baggage system used by Austrian Airlines. In any case, I assured them that since the bags were tagged through to San Francisco they should eventually be able to retrieve them.

I just recently had my own baggage adventure. My wife and I were traveling from Krakow, Poland, to Prague, Czech Republic. There was no direct flight, so we flew first to Warsaw on LOT Polish Airlines, connecting to another LOT flight from Warsaw to Prague. When we arrived in Prague, three people from our group of 30, including me, were missing a bag. I was ready to go shopping the next day, but by the end of breakfast the day after the flights, the missing luggage was delivered to our hotel.

These adventures prove the theory that if you can travel with carry-on baggage, this is one less adventure you might have to suffer when you travel.

— Marvin Singer, a volunteer with Travelers Aid and a member of GT’s Globility Board