Advice
Purloining passengers
Avoiding cabin thievery
The unpleasantnesses of long-haul air travel are plenty: cramped quarters, boisterous passengers, preservative-rich food, grainy movies, contaminated air, lines at the lavatory, sleep deprivation, even the potential for deep vein thrombosis.
But that’s not all. There may be more malevolent trouble accompanying you in the air—one that can wreck your entire trip and can go unnoticed until you have long departed from your flight. It's the cabin thief.
Certainly the potential consequences of cabin theft are nowhere near as serious as a mechanical malfunction or a whacked-out passenger or a terrorist hijacking, but it can be a major inconvenience at best to have your valuables pinched while you're snoozing at 30,000 feet. And while cabin theft is not a big problem in the scheme of things—well, it’s not a big problem until it happens to you—the theft of belongings from coat closets, from under passenger seats, and from overhead bins on airplanes can and does happen.
Come to think about it, it would be rather surprising if theft were not a problem. After all, passengers on overnight, transoceanic flights can be easy pickin’s. Just look at the opportunity. There is plenty of time to plan and carry out a theft—or several thefts. There is usually a period in flight when many of the passengers are sleeping and the lighting in the cabin is dim. And finally, victims are unlikely to discover the thefts until the thief is long gone.
So other than staying awake and sitting on your luggage the whole trip, what can you do to protect yourself from having your valuables swiped while aboard a long-haul flight? Here a few, simple rules.
Pack your most important items on the bottom.
Don’t pack your plum travel items near the on top of your suitcase. Make it difficult for a thief to slide his hand into your luggage and easily find your prized possessions.
Check your luggage.
Although this alternative doesn’t appeal to those who like to hit the tarmac running, it does eliminate the possibility of your bags being rifled through during flight. (Having your luggage being ransacked by baggage handlers on the ground is another story.)
Secure your carry-ons.
After you clear airport security, strap, buckle, tie, zip and do whatever else you can do to make it difficult to get into your luggage. Heck, you can even lock it.
Store your carry-ons in sight.
Carry-on luggage stored under your feet is more secure than in overhead bins. Nevertheless, when using an overhead bin for your belongings, use one in front of you on the other side of the aisle so you can see if others are groping your belongings.
Keep important documents close.
Keep really, really important documents such as your passport and your cash as close as possible to your skin. A good way to do this is to carry a travel wallet that fits under your clothes.
Inventory your effects.
There is one more precaution you should take. This one, however, involves a stranger adding items to, rather than subtracting items from your luggage. Before you disembark from your flight, check your carry-on luggage not only to make sure you haven’t been looted while in-flight but also to ensure you haven’t become an unsuspecting “mule.” If an "importer" has placed contraband in your luggage to help him move his goods through customs risk-free (to him), you could find yourself in a circumstance much worse than discovering that a couple of credit cards have gone missing. Moreover, if the contraband is drugs and you have flown into a death-penalty-for-possession country, you will be considerably more than inconvenienced.
Keep these tips in mind when planning for your next long-haul, airplane ride. And though you can’t eliminate the possibility of being victimized while on that trip, you can reduce your risk by worrying less about being ripped off by an airline and worrying more about being ripped off while on an airline.
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