Checked Bag Fees: Money for Nothing

While the airlines don't appear to be doing much with baggage -- except charging more -- one U.S. airport is investing money to make sure fewer bags get lost.

McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas has more passengers starting or ending their trip there than any other airport in the country except Los Angeles International Airport.

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That means a lot of bags go through its system.

Airport officials say their facility handles 70,000 to 75,000 outbound bags a day.

Some of those are bound to get lost.

But since the airport started a new radio frequency tagging system in September 2005, it has tracked bags with much greater accuracy.

Traditionally, when a passenger checks a bag, the airlines print a tag with the person's name, flight number, connecting airport and final destination. The tags have bar codes that can be read by scanners -- similar to those at the supermarket -- and also say in big letters the three-letter code for the destination: i.e., MCO for Orlando or DFW for Dallas-Fort Worth.

Passengers flying out of Las Vegas still get those tags with the bar codes, but their tags also have a little chip in them with a unique identifier. Using radio waves, those chips and the baggage equipment talk to each other, smoothing a bag's trip through the system.