Last year, airlines lost a million more pieces of luggage than the year before.Millions of Americans believe that the overhead bins are a safer bet than the baggage hole.

The transportation department backs them up in a new report which says 2005 was the worst year for wayward bags since 1990. For many travelers their first stop after landing is the lost luggage line. The reasons are that travel is up, airline staffing levels are down and security is tighter.

As a consequence the number of bags lost by US Airways for example rose a whopping 80.5% over 2004, Southwest 26.9%, American 25.2% and Delta 37.1% or 573,419 bags lost in one year. To be fair to the airlines all these loses amounted to fewer than 10 complaints for every one thousand customers....