Baggage handling delays

From 2012 through 2018, Delta processed an average of 1.55 reports of lost or mishandled luggage per 1,000 passengers, while Envoy faced a much steeper 6.76 per 1,000 passengers.
During the same time period, the average of all 12 airlines is 2.89 reports per 1,000 passengers. That means fewer than 3 travelers out of 1,000 experienced lost or mishandled luggage. (Though when it’s yours, it always seems worse, doesn’t it?). Not surprisingly, problems peak during the summer months and the holidays.
https://luggagehero.com/blog/lost-luggage-report-2019/

Even before covid some luggage went astray.

The worst of this summer's problem is probably past, but still no guarantee of 100% perfection

Hey Grier! We had great luck on our flight from PDX to FRA the end of August. It felt like things had been worked out. No piles of luggage as previously reported.

We did put Tiles (tracking devices) in our bags. They were a little misleading because we lost the signal when the bags were in the bowels of PDX, but in FRA they showed up when the luggage was unloaded.

Have a great trip!

I don't have any pointed statistics but did want to offer two recent experiences regarding luggage delays. In May, albeit dated, one of our bags didn't make it home from Vienna. We were traveling on a United ticket Austrian Air to Chicago with a United Regional home. We had to remove our bags in Chicago for customs before connecting again domestically. No bag. We received contradictory information from United at O'Hare on next steps advising we had to go onto Austrians web site to report it. Not so. At our final destination in Greenville Spartanburg(GSP) still no bag but the United baggage claim staff in Greenville was awesome. They completed all the paperwork, located our bag in Chicago and it was delivered to our home. More recently, we just returned from Scotland, we flew Greenville to Newark to London on United and continued to Shannon Ireland on Aer Lingus. Our bags were checked all the way thru to Shannon.
Upon arrival in Shannon another missing bag. The Aer Lingus baggage agent was also helpful completing the paperwork. They did locate the bag in Newark, put it on the next United flight to Shannon and it was delivered to our tour hotel the next day. Do pack a few days essentials and carry those on the plane and seems the airlines have the infrastructure in place to locate and forward bags.
I know some folks are carrying on exclusively and bless you if you can swing that, but in the case of our Ireland trip, Aer Lingus carry on limits are modest. Happy travels...

Thank you, thank you for your very helpful responses! Laurel, I'm so glad you were able to check your bags without a problem. I will check a bag and can now take my hiking sticks!

Travelled PDX-ORD-ZRH-FLR leaving Wednesday the 7th. I had scheduled 2-hour connections in ORD and ZRH.

Arriving at baggage claim in Florence I was flabbergasted to find a huge crowd clustered around what looked like only three belts. And for 'my' belt there were three flights listed, arriving within 5 minutes of each other, Copenhagen, Zurich, and Paris! This certainly is not going to go well, thought.

Despite this, in fact the bags from Copenhagen came out first and cleared quickly, followed by Zurich, my bag included. I didn't stick around for Rome :-)

In fact, I spent less time at baggage claim as I have at PDX (Portland, OR).

I'm in London right now. The only one who ever handles my baggage is me. Carry on only. I stick to Rick's packing list and do quite well.

Baggage handling problems have been acute at only a very few global airports—the real issue is not nearly as widespread as the hype or fear around it. Neither IAD or EDI have been centers of these problems.