Airports are an easy place to lose items as passengers dash about trying to reach the corrects zones, attempt to repack bags, or are simply too jet lagged to notice missing belongings.
It would be easy to assume that if you lose something at the airport you could simply head to the lost property desk and collect the item.
However, it isn’t as simple as that – and in fact you’ll have to do something you might not realise to get your stuff back.
No matter which airport you fly from you will have to pay a service fee in order to reclaim your item.
At Heathrow, for instance, charges can be as much as £20, more if you want to include post and packaging for them to send it to you.
A child’s toy can be collected free of charge, scarves books and blankets, glasses, umbrellas, pillows will be £5, ID cards, or e-readers will be £15 while laptops, electrical items, passports, jackets will be £20.
These fees cover the cost of safely storing goods for three months – the higher price or more sensitive the item, the more personalised storage needs and therefore the more cost it takes to hold. If they have not been claimed after three months, the items are given to charity or disposed of (note – laptops/tablets/phones are cleared of data at this stage).
Even though it may seem unfair to pay to simply retrieve your own stuff, this fee covers the administration process and storage of the item.
“There are many man hours that go into collecting items from around the airport, logging them, storing securely and then ultimately reuniting them with their owners.” Marc Stewart, Director of Luggage Point, which provides a lost property service to Manchester and Stansted Airports, told Express.co.uk
“Luggage-Point need to recoup the costs of the man hours for logging/storing items and answering enquiries, ensuring items in our possession, covering rents involved as well as take into account the liability that could be incurred should an item be lost or damaged whilst in our care. This is standard across all large UK travel hubs.”
Lost property is registered within 24 and 48 hours of being found at an airport.
The item is then kept for three months (90 days) before being discarded.
This is because “there is finite storage space available,” explains Stewart.
“After three calendar months the items are sold, disposed of or donated to charity in line with the bye-laws of the airport,” he said.
“After the period of three months, the original owner can claim back any sale proceeds minus reasonable admin expenses.”
At Gatwick, if you lose something, you need to log the lost item online and the lost property office (operated by Excess Baggage Company) will then start the process of matching an item to the description you give.
They will then give you a reference number so that you can arrange for the collection of your item or organise for it to be posted to you.
At Heathrow, all items go onto a database which you can search to see if your property has been found.
A spokesman for Gatwick Airport told Express.co.uk: “As Gatwick is one of Europe’s busiest airports, there is understandably administration costs involved with processing and storing the number of items that are unfortunately left behind by our 45 million passengers every year.
“Lost property items are securely stored at the airport for a total of 90 days and, only if attempts to reunite the owner with their lost property have been unsuccessful during this period, the items are then discarded.”
However, if you lost something by leaving it on the plane, you need to contact your airline rather than the airport.
Earlier this year, a travel expert revealed the answer to never leaving anything behind while travelling.
