A traveler lost their headphones on a flight to the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Qatar Airways just returned them one World Cup later

​Fast forward nearly four years, and with flights grounded due to the U.S.-Iran war, airline staff finally found the time to tackle the years-old lost-and-found backlog. ​“Out of nowhere, I got an email saying they still had them in a Doha storage facility!” ericwuxp noted in the Reddit post. “Because of the airspace lockdown, they couldn’t fly them out immediately, but promised to put them on the earliest flight possible to LAX once things reopened.”

​Last week, right in the middle of the 2026 World Cup, he got a call from the Qatar Airways team at LAX.

“My headphones had landed. I went to the Tom Bradley International Terminal check-in counter, and they handed them right over,” he said, offering an email from Qatar Air to support the story. “The battery was completely dead, but after a quick charge, they powered up and worked flawlessly. Apparently, if you lose something on a flight, you just have to wait exactly one full World Cup cycle to get it back!”

Moneywise has reached out to Qatar Airways to confirm the story.

According to air travel industry tech consortium SITA, about six of every 1,000 pieces of luggage are mishandled by airlines, and 36.5 million bags were lost in 2024. Although the proportion of mishandled items is fairly steady, the number of bags lost increases by millions each year as air travel grows.

Airlines spend approximately $2 billion annually managing delayed or lost items, SendMyBag.com estimates. “For passengers, the costs are personal and often unrecoverable,” the company noted in a statement.

Those numbers are likely incomplete, as SendMyBag noted that 34% of airports don’t share luggage-delivery data with airlines, and 42% of airlines don’t share luggage data with airports.

Tracking the journey of lost luggage is up to the airline

Often it’s not the airport to blame when luggage and valuables are misplaced.

While American Airlines and United Airlines have higher luggage mishandling rates, according to SendMyBag, some of those numbers result from “operational challenges at their hub airports, where congestion and quick connections can lead to mishaps.”

“More bags are getting delayed, misplaced, misdirected, or stolen as a result of the high volumes of air travel,” the company noted.

For a variety of reasons, including staffing, logistics, and in the case of Qatar Airways, being in a war zone, airlines may take a while to get back to you on a lost luggage issue.

“They found it in December 2022,” the user noted. “I provided my seat and flight number so that wasn’t so hard. However, they stopped responding to my email afterward until this March (2026). I guess the bag [the airline kept it in] was clearly labeled with my information after all these years.”

Typically, airlines track bags using barcodes or RFID tags, and if a bag is missing, it is sent to a central processing area where handlers try to locate its owner, according to SendMyBag.

Occasionally, the bag may also wind up at a regional or national lost luggage center, where unclaimed bags are listed for further investigation. That tracking issue alone can take weeks to resolve, so travelers should be persistent and, if needed, provide a more detailed review of lost items, which can help reduce wait times.

Valuable items, such as electronics, may be treated differently from non-valuable items.

“Whether your lost item is returned to you ultimately depends upon how accurate your initial report was and whether there is a match for your lost item using identifying information and the recovered item,” Robert Sekscinski, co-founder at Rosotravel, a consumer travel services company, told Moneywise.

Additionally, many travelers don’t provide sufficient detail about the lost item, which makes it difficult for airline personnel to determine who it belongs to. In cases where there is no response, Sekscinski recommends being organized and persistent.

“Save all claim numbers and documents related to airline interactions and follow up accordingly through multiple channels — most likely baggage services, customer relations, and airport lost and found,” he advised.

Take action right away in a lost luggage situation

If your luggage is officially declared lost, you may be eligible for compensation from the airline. The process typically begins by filing a claim directly with the airline, providing detailed information about your bag and its contents.

“Reach out to airport staff immediately,” Michelle L. Jensen, founder of Travel HerStory, an excursion blogging platform, told Moneywise. “There’ll be a desk you can go to specifically for luggage issues and file a complaint ASAP. Any delay will only make the whole process take longer.”

It’s also critical to let the airline know what the bag looks like and any location data you may have from a tracker such as an AirTag.

“If you’re away from home, you’ll also need to tell them where you’re staying,’ Jensen said.

Additionally, ask whether there’s any compensation, such as a stipend, for clothing you may need to purchase. “This will vary by location and airline typically, so research what you’re entitled to, as they may not be super keen to cough up what you’re legally entitled to,” Jensen added. According to U.S. and Montreal Convention air passenger rights laws, the average compensation from an airline for checked luggage that is lost or damaged is between $1,525 and $3,500.

Help prevent lost luggage with tags and digital trackers

While it’s helpful to call and report lost baggage and include an airline seat number, flight number, and photos or receipts, a baggage tag issued by the airline — half of which you keep, and the other half of which is attached to the bag — can really help unstick lost luggage situations.