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If you are a baggage handler, here’s why you never should tie anything to your suitcase

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People put all sorts of decorations onto their luggage in the hopes that no one else will accidentally pick it up and leave them with one pair of underwear and zero clothes for their week-long holiday.

We’ve all been there – and there’s nothing worse than trying to put an outfit together with the offerings from the hotel gift shop, so can you really blame people for emblazoning their name in big diamantes on their case?

One vigilant passenger even strapped a GoPro onto their luggage to keep track on it after it left their possession and began its journey along the maze of conveyer belts.

Which says a lot about some of our trust issues, but that’s another story.

Travellers add trinkets, key rings, luggage tags, colourful strings, or stickers to their bags so that they’re easy to clock when coming around on the carousel – and tying a ribbon on the handle is also a popular method.
But according to a baggage handler at Dublin Airport, distinguishing your luggage in this way could end up completely derailing your holiday.

The employee, named John, explained that personalising your precious baggage could actually do more harm than good, as your belongings might not even make it onto the plane.

He told RSVP Live: “Ribbons people tie onto their suitcases to help identify them can cause issues with the bag being scanned in the baggage hall.

“If the bag can’t be scanned automatically it can end up in manual processing, which could mean your bag doesn’t make it to the flight,” he added.

“Take old stickers off the bag, it can cause confusion with the scanning process.”

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