Rick Owens for The New York Times

In recent Bucks posts, I wrote about the difficulties involved in getting back items left on planes as well as reader tips for improving the odds of a happy reunion with your forgotten possessions.

Still, I did not address what happens to the items if they are not stolen and are not returned to the rightful owner, something at least one reader (Steve from Boston) asked me to find out.

Here is his question: “Assuming thousands of items are left on planes every week, and most are never returned to their owners, what do the airlines do with them? Are there huge warehouses somewhere? Do they sell them for a profit? Donate them? Ms. Schultz, perhaps you could ask the airlines to address this question for your readers.”

I followed his suggestion and here is what I could find out.



Airlines generally keep the items in their lost and found departments for a certain period of time and then, if they cannot reunite the items with their owners, they “dispose” of the items.

By dispose, I mean sell them. Here is what a spokeswoman from American Airlines, for instance, wrote to me in an e-mail message: “By contract we cannot discuss to whom we sell unclaimed baggage or lost and found. We keep it several months and dispose of it only after all attempts to locate owner fail.”

A spokesman for US Airways, Todd Lehmacher, said items left on US Airways planes are held at the airport where they were found for five days and then are sent to the airline’s warehouse in Charlotte, N.C., where they remain for 90 days. Then, the unclaimed items are “acquired by an outside company, which either sells or donates the item to charity,” Mr. Lehmacher said.

So who could the airlines be selling the goods to? As Bucks reader Terry from Alabama wrote in a comment to my original post, there is a good chance it is the Unclaimed Baggage Center, a store in Scottsboro, Ala., where “the vast majority of items” for sale are items that “after at least 90 days of intensive tracking by the airlines, are declared unclaimed,” according to the store’s site.

Here is a recent CBS News piece on the store, and you can find out more here as well. This 1999 New York Times article also covered the store, as did this one from 2000 and this one from 2004.

A spokeswoman for the store confirmed that the store does purchase items from the airlines.

“When it is the case that the items are not able to be successfully returned, we purchase them from the airlines after a period of time,” the spokeswoman, Brenda Cantrell, wrote in an e-mail message.

Unfortunately, you cannot call the Unclaimed Baggage Center to see if they have your item and then claim it if they do. According to Ms. Cantrell, “Passengers could not call us to report or claim a missing item.”

Why? She said the volume and similarity of items left on planes (think iPods, compact discs in black carrying case, cameras, books, eyeglasses and jackets) makes it “difficult to distinguish what belongs to who and from what flight it originated on.”

Plus, the store is a privately held company that does not “have any passenger information or liability for these items,” she said.

Still, you might feel better knowing there is a chance your item could end up with someone in need. The Unclaimed Baggage Center, according to Ms. Cantrell, donates about 40 percent of what it purchases from the airlines to organizations like the Lions Club International (glasses go here) and the Salvation Army, among others.

How do you feel about this final destination for items left on planes? Where do you think the items should end up?