One of the world's largest aircraft manufacturers has come up with an anti-theft suitcase. Airbus Corporation has presented a prototype of “smart” luggage, which itself informs the owner that he is lost at the airport. In addition, the suitcase is able to recognize the hand of a stranger and signal to the owner that things have been stolen. Details from Svetlana Belova.

Every year, airlines lose 650 thousand suitcases. And this is data only from the Association of European Carriers. The most unreliable: British Airways, Austrian airlines, Dutch KLM, as well as Lufthansa, which, according to statistics, loses 17 suitcases out of every thousand. Passengers themselves were asked to control their luggage. Airbus Corporation has invented the Bag2Go smart suitcase with the “Find me!” function.

This is not the first attempt to teach luggage to follow its owner. Last year, tourists were introduced to the Hop! suitcase, which synchronizes with the owner’s phone via Bluetooth, and a microprocessor makes the suitcase move behind the gadget, maintaining a given distance. If the distance exceeds a critical one, the suitcase stops, locks the locks and sends an alarm to the owner. But for modern tourists it is important not only to keep their bags, but also to protect their contents. It is known that during the sales season, shopaholics flying out of Milan often lose expensive new items, and those returning from the States often lose modern equipment. So Anastasia Chirchenko, returning from New York, found empty packaging and receipts instead of her purchases.

“In one of the suitcases there was a new iPad, in a box, just bought. Upon arrival, I discovered that the iPad was missing, and instead there was just an empty box,” she said.

Loaders are most often guilty of theft. So this winter, Sheremetyevo employees found 30 gutted bags and suitcases from the Moscow-Kharkov flight in the Aeroflot staff rest room. In such cases, as a rule, expensive or exotic alcohol goes missing, journalist and traveler Grigory Pogosyan confirmed.

“At the airport in Minvody, a bottle of Kyrgyz cognac was stolen from my suitcase,” he said.

However, it happens that travelers discover not missing items in their luggage, but, on the contrary, extra items. For example, Ksenia Volkova, returning from Morocco, found a surprise in her kite surfing equipment case.

“I discovered that in the case there was some kind of box with velvet upholstery, absolutely empty, it is not clear what it was from. There was no brand written there or anything at all, no name. Maybe something was in the box and it was taken out , and maybe someone else had it in their luggage,” she said.

The most daring suitcase theft occurred in Norway last fall. King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the ceremonial ruler of the Ashanti people who live in the regions of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, arrived at the conference in Oslo. The royal's security guards did not notice how an unknown person stole the royal luggage right from the check-in desk at the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel. The suitcase was filled to the brim with ceremonial decorations. Gold relics were collected by many generations of Africans, they were used only on special special occasions, and it is simply impossible to compensate for the loss.

"Airbus has invented a smart suitcase"