SEATTLE — A couple from Issaquah is warning travelers after they say their luggage was stolen from the baggage claim area of Sea-Tac Airport after returning from a trip to Texas over the Fourth of July holiday.
Adam and Jennifer, who requested we only use their first names, reached out to KING 5 after learning the Investigators have looked into baggage thefts in the past.
"It's a terrible way to end a wonderful trip," said Adam. "You feel violated."
He said when his family reached their carousel, they noticed only one of their bags was present, but that it had been removed from the carousel.
After reporting the issue to their airline and Port of Seattle police, they said they were allowed to review surveillance footage with police. Adam and Jennifer said the footage showed a man walking off with two of their bags; they provided KING 5 with a photo that they said was captured from the video during their review.
A spokesperson for Sea-Tac said he could not comment on that case specifically but addressed the couple's concerns.
"We take baggage theft very seriously," Perry Cooper said. "Statistically, it's really rare. But if it's your bag you don't care what the statistics say, you're just concerned about what's just been stolen from you."
Cooper said of the more than 30 million bags that pass through the airport each year, roughly 400 are reported stolen.
"So that's a fraction of 1% that gets stolen," he said.
But for victims like Jennifer and Adam, it can be hard to dismiss those numbers, which work out to an average of more than one theft per day.
"Baggage claim isn't the innocuous place you thought it was, it's a rampant crime scene," Adam said. "It's a disaster down there. I'm not checking bags again."
"Don't put anything valuable, especially memorabilia, in your checked luggage," echoed Jennifer.
Last year, the KING 5 Investigators reported the issue has been growing steadily over the last several years, from a low in 2011 of 97 reported incidences of bag theft to a record high of 477 cases in 2022.
Cooper said the rise in thefts has mirrored the rise in post-pandemic travel. He also said the statistics at Sea-Tac are comparable to other major airports.
"We hope we can get to get to zero, but unfortunately, zero is hard to get to," he told KING 5.
Cooper said the airport uses undercover and uniformed officers, as well as surveillance cameras, to monitor activity in baggage claim and urged travelers to consider keeping valuables in their carry-on items as an extra security measure.