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100,000 bags a day: Dubai’s Emirates registers record annual baggage handling
The rate of delayed, lost, or misplaced baggage is minimal at 1.4 per 1,000, the airline said
- PUBLISHED: Mon 12 May 2025, 3:03 PM
Dubai’s Emirates on Monday said 2024-25 was its busiest year for baggage handling, as it handled more than 2.8 million bags each month, averaging 100,000 bags per day.
The world’s largest international carrier said these figures mark a 3.7 per cent increase in the number of total bags handled per year and it maintained a 99.9 per cent baggage handling success rate from its Dubai International (DXB) airport. This placed Emirates among the top-performing airlines worldwide.
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Emirates said the rate of ‘baggage mishandling’ which can be defined as ‘delayed, lost or misplaced baggage,’ is minimal at 1.4 in a 1,000 – almost 30 times lower than some other providers.
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On a global level, when Emirates customers' bags are unavoidably delayed, 91 per cent are reunited with their owners within 72 hours, the airline said.
“Internationally, this rate is notable because Emirates mainly manages international baggage and international transfer baggage, so the luggage goes on long and complex journeys that require a significantly higher level of attention than domestic travel,” it clarified.
In terms of lost and found, the carrier added that 94 per cent of valuable items were proactively recovered and returned to customers in Dubai within 60 minutes. These items are found either on Emirates aircraft and at Emirates hub in Dubai International (DXB) Terminal 3 and are marked as ‘valuable’ because they are essential items for Emirates customers.
On average, a customer’s luggage goes on a trip of its own. Steps can include a porter’s trolley to a check-in agent and baggage belt, to the ‘Boss Room’ where baggage is scanned with high technology security, to being loaded into dnata baggage containers and onto the moveable dollies bound for Emirates aircraft, before it travels across the world, to meet the baggage handlers at a new destination.
How to track your bag?
In 2024, the airline introduced the ‘Emirates Bag Connect’ tool on its app to offer a view of the baggage journey with timely baggage status tracking. An additional feature was also introduced to allow customers to track mishandled bag delivery and this service is now available at 80 stations across Emirates’ network.
In Dubai, from 2.8 million bags handled monthly, an average of 2,300 bags are found without baggage tags. Emirates and dnata teams work together to proactively track the owner and an average of 80 per cent of these bags are recovered and loaded onto the aircraft before the departure of the flight, ensuring no disruption to the customer.
On the rare occasion that baggage is delayed, an array of scenarios may have occurred. Sometimes baggage tags are accidentally torn off, or occasionally a bag could fall off the underground baggage belt as it rounds a corner.
It said a transfer flight may be unavoidably delayed due to weather or a sick passenger, making it impossible to remove and reload the bag onto the passenger’s transfer flight in time. “In this case, the customer's bag is immediately loaded onto the next flight. This is done automatically by a combination of complex systems: Baggage Handling System by Dubai Airport, Baggage Reconciliation System by dnata, and Emirates Bag Connect.
