If you are off the flight and your bag isn't it, you need to move really quickly, especially if the plane in on its way out. The bag may still be on board, and it may also be possible to retrieve it before the aircraft takes off for its next destination. But you have to be quick on your feet. Locate the member of the ground handling staff, ready with a clear description of the missing piece of luggage. Only urgent action - with instructions conveyed to the baggage handling staff by walkie-talkie - will bring results if the bag is indeed on board. If not, there are forms to be filled and claims to be made, following which the bag is usually located.

I recall arriving in West Africa once, with a board meeting scheduled for the next morning. My baggage did not come off the flight. The air staff made a search but nothing showed up. Finally, they offered to hoist me into the plane's cargo hold, and I was able to locate my bag. I would otherwise have had arrive at the board meeting the following day clad in T-shirt and jeans.

However, access to the off-limits areas of a plane is not an everyday occurrence. This is a rare situation whereby the environment, airline staff and passenger's power of persuasion come together to permit such an unconventional problem-solving approach.

On another occasion and at another airport, I had the rather unpleasant experience of seeing my bag being picked up and carried away by someone else. I was quite a distance away and had to put up a chase before I caught up with him at the exit and pointed out that he had taken my bag. Great embarrassment and profuse apologies followed, and the person insisted on inviting me to his home. It turned out that he was a nuclear scientist and had picked up my bag in a state of absent-mindedness!