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Lost Luggage … Daily Problem at Frankfurt Airport

A traveler passes a stacked cart of luggage while entering an airport terminal. (AP)
A traveler passes a stacked cart of luggage while entering an airport terminal. (AP)
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Lost Luggage … Daily Problem at Frankfurt Airport

A traveler passes a stacked cart of luggage while entering an airport terminal. (AP)
A traveler passes a stacked cart of luggage while entering an airport terminal. (AP)

The luggage on the plane coming from the Gran Canaria are about to be placed on the luggage compartment at Frankfurt Airport. When the first batch of passengers arrive, they gather around the walk, pushing the luggage carriers to the best location to quickly pick up their bags.

But a bag is still turning, missing from the previous trip and obviously without an owner. This is a normal case for Matisse Schultz, a luggage investigator.

Schultz, who works for Fraport, which runs Frankfurt Airport, says it is an owner-less bag on the compartment, and that happens almost every day.

He adds that the gathering of helpless passengers around the compartment is another case that happens too much, as well.

Schultz and his colleagues, a 40-member team, head to work, and do not wait for travelers who have not found their luggage in their office.

"We find them and ask them what they are waiting for," he says.

Sometimes, the situation is simple without complications; ski-boards, bicycles, and baby strollers are referred to an office dedicated for heavy luggage.

In other situations, a compartment malfunction delays the emptying of the luggage container, so passengers' bags do not appear until after 15 anxious minutes. In some cases, however, baggage can be really lost.

The luggage investigator can write a report on a lost bag, and register the passenger’s luggage-related information: What is the missing thing, its size, and color?

Some travelers show a surprising lack of knowledge of their luggage.

The team leader Haiki Frisk, who has been working at the luggage department since 2000, said: "They often do not know the brand. And some do not even know the color of their bag."

Thanks to the barcode on the bag and the matching "luggage card" attached to the boarding pass, investigators can quickly decide whether the bag has gone to the correct plane at the take-off point.

Then, a global search system can be used to track luggage internationally. The bag may have remained at the take-off point all along. The case can become more complicated in transit flights, during which luggage are carried from one aircraft to another.

For example, if a passenger travels from New York via Frankfurt to Singapore, and his luggage is not routed to the final destination, they can end up in Frankfurt, while the passenger is on his way to his final destination and he does not know that his bags have delayed.

The luggage investigator also receives inquiries from other airports looking for missing luggage.

In order to return the luggage to the owner, investigators first check the information contained in the barcode, which refers to the departure and arrival airports and baggage tags, and can provide information about the identity of the owner.

Frisk said: "I know that many people are afraid to put a card with their names and personal data, such as their addresses and phone numbers on the suitcase."

But, at least it is recommended that you have a paper with contact data on the bag, in case of loss.

Other issues that Schultz has to deal with include incorrect baggage tags when entering, and passengers getting the wrong bags, which can easily happen if there are several bags of similar size and color.

If someone holds a wrong bag after a long journey without checking it, he may not notice it until after he reaches the house and empties its content.

Frisks explained: “We usually know it then, because the real owner has reported the loss.”

In addition to the investigative skills, baggage investigators also need patience, empathy and firmness.

Schultz remarked: "Many of the airport attendants realize that we are not guilty, but we are here to help them and return the luggage as soon as possible.”

But in some situations people get nervous and act dramatically at the baggage investigators' office.

It is not uncommon to see a businessman disturbed because of his lost baggage, which contains the suit he will wear to attend an important meeting, or a parent looking for a missing bag containing his child's beloved toy.

But that, according to Frisk, "makes work interesting too."

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Scientists Gather to Decode Puzzle of the World’s Rarest Whale in ‘Extraordinary’ New Zealand Study

A handout photo taken on July 5, 2024 and received on July 16 from the New Zealand Department of Conservation shows rangers Jim Fyfe (L) and Tumai Cassidy walking beside what appears to be the carcass of a rare spade-toothed whale after it was discovered washed ashore on a beach near Taieri Mouth in New Zealand's southern Otago province. (Handout / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
A handout photo taken on July 5, 2024 and received on July 16 from the New Zealand Department of Conservation shows rangers Jim Fyfe (L) and Tumai Cassidy walking beside what appears to be the carcass of a rare spade-toothed whale after it was discovered washed ashore on a beach near Taieri Mouth in New Zealand's southern Otago province. (Handout / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
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Scientists Gather to Decode Puzzle of the World’s Rarest Whale in ‘Extraordinary’ New Zealand Study

A handout photo taken on July 5, 2024 and received on July 16 from the New Zealand Department of Conservation shows rangers Jim Fyfe (L) and Tumai Cassidy walking beside what appears to be the carcass of a rare spade-toothed whale after it was discovered washed ashore on a beach near Taieri Mouth in New Zealand's southern Otago province. (Handout / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
A handout photo taken on July 5, 2024 and received on July 16 from the New Zealand Department of Conservation shows rangers Jim Fyfe (L) and Tumai Cassidy walking beside what appears to be the carcass of a rare spade-toothed whale after it was discovered washed ashore on a beach near Taieri Mouth in New Zealand's southern Otago province. (Handout / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)

It is the world’s rarest whale, with only seven of its kind ever spotted. Almost nothing is known about the enigmatic species. But on Monday a small group of scientists and cultural experts in New Zealand clustered around a near-perfectly preserved spade-toothed whale hoping to decode decades of mystery.

“I can’t tell you how extraordinary it is,” said a joyful Anton van Helden, senior marine science adviser for New Zealand’s conservation agency, who gave the spade-toothed whale its name to distinguish it from other beaked species. “For me personally, it’s unbelievable.”

Van Helden has studied beaked whales for 35 years, but Monday was the first time he has participated in a dissection of the spade-toothed variety. In fact, the careful study of the creature -- which washed up dead on a New Zealand beach in July — is the first ever to take place.

None has ever been seen alive at sea.

The list of what scientists don’t know about spade-toothed whales is longer than what they do know. They don’t know where in the ocean the whales live, why they’ve never been spotted in the wild, or what their brains look like. All beaked whales have different stomach systems and researchers don’t know how the spade-toothed kind processes its food. They don’t know how this one died.

Over the next week, researchers studying the 5-meter (16-foot) -long male at an agricultural research center near the city of Dunedin hope to find out.

“There may be parasites completely new to science that just live in this whale,” said van Helden, who thrilled at the chance of learning how the species produces sound and what it eats. “Who knows what we’ll discover?”

Only six other spade-toothed whales have ever been found, but all those discovered intact were buried before DNA testing could verify their identification.

New Zealand is a whale-stranding hotspot, with more than 5,000 episodes recorded since 1840, according to the Department of Conservation. The first spade-toothed whale bones were found in 1872 on New Zealand’s Pitt Island. Another discovery was made at an offshore island in the 1950s, and the bones of a third were found on Chile’s Robinson Crusoe Island in 1986.

DNA sequencing in 2002 proved that all three specimens were of the same species — and that it was distinct from other beaked whales. But researchers studying the mammal couldn’t confirm whether the species was extinct until 2010, when two whole spade-toothed whales, both dead, washed up on a New Zealand beach. But none has been studied before.

On Monday, the seventh of its kind, surrounded by white-aproned scientists who were measuring and photographing, appeared relatively unblemished, giving no clue about its death. Researchers pointed out marks from cookiecutter sharks — normal, they said, and not the cause.

The dissection will be quiet, methodical and slower than usual, because it is being undertaken in partnership with Māori, New Zealand's Indigenous people. To Māori, whales are a taonga -– a precious treasure -– and the creature will be treated with the reverence afforded to an ancestor.

Members of the local iwi, or tribe, will be present throughout the dissection and consulted at each turn, allowing them to share traditional knowledge and observe customs, such as saying a karakia -– a prayer -– over the creature before the study begins.

“According to our beliefs and our traditions, this whale is a gift of Tangaroa, deity of the ocean,” said Tumai Cassidy from the local people Te Rūnanga Ōtākou. “It’s very important for us to respect that gift and to honor the whale.”

The iwi will keep the jawbone and teeth of the whale at the end of the dissection, before its skeleton is displayed in a museum. 3D printing will be used to replicate those parts, using a CT scan taken of the whale’s head this week.

“It all builds a richer picture for that species but also tells us how it interacts with our oceans,” Cassidy said.

It’s thought that spade-toothed whales live in the vast Southern Pacific Ocean, home to some of the world’s deepest ocean trenches. Beaked whales are the ocean's deepest divers for food, and the spade-toothed may rarely surface, adding to its mystery.

The assembled scientists on Monday included a few who had traveled from abroad to see the whale, which was put in refrigerated storage after its discovery.

“What we are interested in is not only how these animals died, but how they lived,” said Joy Reidenberg, a comparative anatomist from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “In discovering how they live, we are hoping to find discoveries that we can apply back to the human condition.”