Lost & (rarely) found: Forgotten items pile up at airport
These items are now in the custody of the airport authority's materials management department, located just beside the T1 domestic terminal.
They have each been tagged with unique identifying numbers and displayed on the AAI's official website under the lost-and-found category for the owners to reclaim. Despite this, the percentage of people reclaiming lost properties at Chennai airport is low. Statistics show a total of 17,769 items were logged as lost property in 2023, of which 5,275 were claimed.
In 2024, the figure rose to 21,770, but only 5,744 items were reclaimed.
Officials say bags top the list of lost items. The materials management department is in possession of more than 5,000 bags and trolleys of different sizes and shapes, mostly containing clothes and other items. These are followed by mobile phones (approximately 3,000) and wallets and purses (2,500). "Keys come next. There are about 10 laptops too in our possession," said AAI officials.
The security personnel and contract workers who find the unclaimed valuables in the operational and city side of the terminals hand them over to the airport manager in the terminals. After three days, if the goods are still unclaimed, they are sent to the materials management wing. While some passengers willfully forefeit unnecessary goods to keep the check-in and hand luggage within permissible weight, others misplace valuable items while bidding adieu to their dear ones.
The most tiring exercise for the AAI team is handling lost gold. "It is examined with a certified valuer to assess its worth, and it has to be kept in a safe," he said. A year later, the unclaimed items were auctioned through the MSTC portal. AAI Chennai generated 51 lakh just from the unclaimed gold in 2024.
Airport authorities, however, do not see this as a wealth-generating exercise. "We ideally want the goods to reach their genuine owners. We have started dispatching lost passports to the respective passport kendras. We have placed QR codes at terminals to locate the materials management department on Google Maps too," said an official. "Also, there is no charge on this service unlike private airports," said another official.
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