DUBAI, 16 MAY 2025: With global travel at an all-time high, Emirates has confirmed its busiest year for baggage handling yet. Between April 2024 and March 2025, Emirates handled more than 2.8 million bags each month, averaging 100,000 per day, from Dubai to 140 global destinations.
These figures mark a 3.7% increase in total bags from last year. Despite its complex operation, Emirates has maintained a 99.9% baggage handling success rate from its Dubai hub.
Emirates’ excellent statistical record for baggage handling places it as the top performing airline worldwide. 99.9% of all baggage coming from Dubai or transferring through reaches its owner on time at the correct destination. Emirates ‘baggage mishandling rate, which can be defined as ‘delayed, lost or misplaced baggage,’ is minimal at 1.4 in 1000 at the Dubai hub – almost 30 times lower than some other providers.
On a global level, when Emirates customers’ bags are unavoidably delayed, 91% are reunited with their owners within 72 hours. 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.
Lost and found is another area where Emirates excels, with 94% of valuable items proactively recovered and returned to customers in Dubai within 60 minutes, thanks to a dedicated team. These items are found either on Emirates aircraft or at the Emirates hub in Dubai International (DXB) Terminal 3. They are marked as ‘valuable’ because they are essential items for Emirates customers’ travel experience – passports, wallets and phones.
Latest developments for Emirates Baggage Handling
In 2024, the airline introduced Emirates Bag Connect. This tool is available to customers on the Emirates app and website and offers a comprehensive 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 the Emirates’ network.
In the Emirates Dubai hub, from 2.8 million bags handled monthly, an average of 2300 bags are found without baggage tags. Emirates and dnata teams work together to track the owner proactively. An average of 80% of these bags are recovered and loaded onto the aircraft before the flight’s departure, ensuring no disruption to the customer.
Various scenarios may have occurred on the rare occasion that baggage is delayed. Sometimes baggage tags are accidentally torn off, or occasionally, a bag could fall off the underground baggage belt as its rounds a corner. 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 combining complex systems, such as the baggage handling system by Dubai Airport, the baggage reconciliation system by Dnata, and Emirates Bag Connect.
Emirates attributes its best-in-class baggage handling to robust systems and high-tech procedures, including a multimillion-dollar investment into software that Emirates has tailored to specific needs, providing full visibility of entire journeys. On an average Emirates journey from Dubai, a customer’s luggage goes on its own trip, interacting with many of the Emirates team. 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 tech 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.For information on the airline and to book flights, visit www.emirates.com.
