This article is about the airport location. For the song by Miranda Lambert, see Baggage Claim

Baggage Claim

"Baggage Claim" is the title of a song co-written and recorded by American country artist Miranda Lambert. It was released in August 2011 as the lead-off single from her fourth studio album, Four the Record...

.

In airport terminal

Airport terminal

An airport terminal is a building at an airport where passengers transfer between ground transportation and the facilities that allow them to board and disembark from aircraft....

s, a baggage claim area is an area where arriving passengers claim checked-in baggage after disembarking from an airline

Airline

An airline provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines lease or own their aircraft with which to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for mutual benefit...

 flight

Flight

Flight is the process by which an object moves either through an atmosphere or beyond it by generating lift or propulsive thrust, or aerostatically using buoyancy, or by simple ballistic movement....

. The alternative term baggage reclaim is used to mean the same thing at many airports outside the USA (e.g. Brussels Airport, Heathrow Airport, Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Schiphol Airport and so on).

A typical baggage claim area contains baggage carousel

Baggage carousel

A baggage carousel is a device, generally at an airport, that delivers checked luggage to the passengers at the baggage claim area at their final destination. Not all airports use these devices...

s or conveyor system

Conveyor system

A conveyor system is a common piece of mechanical handling equipment that moves materials from one location to another. Conveyors are especially useful in applications involving the transportation of heavy or bulky materials...

s that deliver checked baggage to the passenger. The baggage claim area generally contains the airline's customer service counter for claiming oversized baggage or to report missing baggage.

Some airports required that passengers display their baggage check

Bag tag

Bag tags, also known as baggage tags, baggage checks or luggage tickets, have traditionally been used by bus, train and airline companies to route passenger luggage that is checked on to the final destination...

 receipt so that it can be positively matched against the bag they are trying to remove from baggage claim. This serves two purposes: first it reduces baggage theft, and secondly it helps to prevent passengers from accidentally leaving the airport with another passenger's bag that bears resemblance to their own.

For international arrivals, the baggage claim area is typically located in a restricted zone, after immigration control and before clearing custom

Custom

Custom may refer to:* Convention , a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted rules, norms, standards or criteria, often taking the form of a custom* Customization , anything made or modified to personal taste...

s, so that all baggage can be inspected by customs agents, but the passenger does not have to handle heavy baggage while moving through the passport booth. In the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, all arriving international passengers' baggage is claimed here and can be re-surrendered to the airline for connecting flights on the other side of customs. In most other countries passengers transferring to an onward flight do not need to collect their bags unless their airline does not offer to check their bags to their final destination. This is required in American and some Canadian airports because international terminals are not enclosed (the only exit being through customs) and often serve domestic flights. The same rule applies in the case of airports that have U.S. border preclearance facilities. This means that passengers continuing onto the U.S. from other cities must retrieve their checked baggage first, then re-check them after clearing U.S. Customs.

Depending on the airport, the domestic baggage claim area may be located next to or shared with the international claim area, or sometimes located in the public part of the airport alongside car rental

Car rental

A car rental or car hire agency is a company that rents automobiles for short periods of time for a fee...

 desks and airport exits, and only passengers at their final destination claim their bags here. In most large airports in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and in some small ones as well, the domestic baggage claim is located on a different floor than the ticket counter, usually lower.

Efficiency of baggage claim units

The efficiency of baggage claim units can be measured in a number of ways including the amount of time a unit is in use for a given flight or the amount of baggage a unit can hold. A number of factors can independently affect the efficiency of a particular unit:

• Aircraft seating capacity
• Proportion of passengers with checked luggage
• Proportion of passengers who are terminating at a given destination
• Average number of luggage pieces per passenger
• Average traveling party size
• Average number of people at baggage claim
• Average rate at which luggage are unloaded from the flight (this also depends on the physical properties of checked luggage)