2 months ago
19
January 5, 2026 — 5:00am
In early December, my wife and I were in the terminal in Delhi airport when she realised she’d left her iPad on the Saudia Airlines flight we’d just left. There followed a frantic session activating Lost Mode on the iPad using her iPhone.
Then a few minutes later, she got a phone call from Saudia lost property. They’d recovered her iPad, it was being held at the check-in desk, would she be able to pick it up? Sadly no, we were about to board a connecting Singapore Airlines flight and time was not on our side. No problem, they said, if we could arrange for someone to pick it up, they would hold the iPad. Which we did, through an Indian friend who got a colleague to travel out to the airport.
Three days after my wife parted company with her iPad, she got a call from Saudia in Delhi airport saying someone had arrived to make the pick-up, asking her to confirm his name and details and even sending a picture of him holding the iPad. Full marks to Saudia. We were flying business class and you have to wonder if that made a difference. Even so, it was an impressive performance, handled with care and professionalism.
Tons of items get left on aircraft. Top of the list are laptops, headphones, phones, earbuds, jackets, coats, jumpers, kids’ toys, eyeglasses and passports, but even entire cabin bags. Plus a swag of more curious items, including fish, birds and lizards, wedding dresses, prosthetics, musical instruments, funerary urns and, slightly worrying, a book titled How to Become a Commercial Airline Pilot, found in an aircraft toilet.
It’s easily done. At the end of your flight, you’re probably tired, maybe you passed the time with a few bevvies and a snooze, you’re distracted by other passengers and you want out, fast. Is there any more ideal scenario for losing something? Especially if it’s been a long flight, and statistics say about four times as many items go missing on international compared with domestic flights.
What to do if you’ve left something on board
If you’re still on the airbridge or not yet in the terminal, try and contact a member of the cabin crew, give them your seat number and ask them to check. If you’re already in the terminal, it’s very unlikely you’d be able to return to the aircraft to look for whatever you’ve lost. In that case, check your airline’s website to find out the procedure for lost items. You might be told to complete an online form or to contact the airport’s lost property office directly.
Kudos to United Airlines, which gets on the front foot on this issue, posting a list of found items by type and the airport where they were located. According to the list, Madrid’s Barajas International Airport seems to be the black hole of lost goods.
Typically, the item will be found by cabin crew or cleaners. In an ideal world, the item is tagged and the flight number, date and seat number are recorded before it’s sent to the airport’s lost and found department. Assuming you have reported the loss, you will be notified when the item is located and it will be sent by courier to your home address, at your expense.
That’s what happens if all the gears mesh and if the good angels are on your side. But what happens in real life depends on the airline, the airport and the country. Those factors are beyond your control, but quick reporting of the loss and a clear, detailed description of what you lost and where you might have lost it are vital, and that’s down to you.
Items that are unclaimed for a specific period, typically 60 to 90 days, might be auctioned off and the proceeds donated to charity or disposed of if they’re low value.
According to Chargerback, developer of a cloud-based lost and found application, a typical airport receives about 80 to 100 lost and found items daily. And an article on the FGK Security website reports that between 30 to 60 per cent of lost items will be returned to their rightful owners.
Anecdotal evidence suggests items that are activated via a password or facial recognition are more likely to find their way home, and so too are passports. They’re a legal document, and airlines and airports are obliged to return them to the country of issue, if not the passenger. Unless it falls into the hands of a hardened crim with high-level counterfeit skills, a passport is of no use to anyone.
Loss avoidance
The seat pocket is the mouth of doom. If you use it to store a book or a pouch, try not to submerge it totally; leave a bit poking out.
Use a flight sack. Uniqlo sells small cloth bags and zippered pouches that are perfect. Mine is a canvas pouch that takes all the odds and ends I might need in-flight, including a pen, earbuds, earphones, face mask, comb, eye drops and a power adaptor with USB ports for in-flight recharging. Items that get used during the flight are returned to the pouch as soon as I’m finished with them.
Count the number of items you’ve deployed. Jumper, phone, neck pillow – that’s three, and therefore three items need to be located and stowed in your carry-on bag before departing the aircraft.
Are you loss prone? Label larger items. Put a sticker with your name, email and phone number on your tablet or laptop and there’s a better chance they’ll find their way back to you.
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