If you travel by air with any frequence, it has likely happened to you. A bar-coded tag is placed on your checked bag at their airport counter and you watch it wisk away down a conveyor belt, presumably to be loaded onto the same plane on which you are about to fly.

Some hours later, you arrive at your destination, and make your way to baggage claim. There, you stand with 200 other passengers, waiting as the carousel went round and round almost magically spitting out piece after piece of luggage. One by one each passenger spotted their luggage, pulled it off with a smile and heads for their hotel. The last bag appears on the carousel—and it is not yours.

There you stand in the airport. No clean clothes, no toiletries, no underwear, nothing but the clothes on your back. Before you think y…