The highs and lows of lost and found: Airport aims to reunite travelers with misplaced items

BLOUNTVILLE — If you have misplaced an iPad, water bottle, sweater or even a pool stick, there's a good chance it's in the Tri-Cities Airport lost and found."Sunglasses, you better believe it," said Gabe Sherrill, the airport's services coordinator, describing the items in the lost and found. "We end up with iPhones, Samsung tablets, tablet gear. I make the best effort possible to get these items back to people because I too know what it's like to have lost something. We've all done it."The airport lost and found contains all sorts of items such as a duffel bag with a hard hat, AirPods, travel mugs, driver's licenses, a scarf, skin creams and even a pair of pants.Though some of these items sit in the lost and found for weeks and months, it's not a rarity for airport employees to see daily inquiries into an item someone believes might have been left behind in the Tri-Cities."We see that several times a week," said Kristi Haulsee, the airport's director of marketing and air service development. "We get someone who has either lost something at the airport or they feel like they may have left it in TSA in the trays or something. They're just not really sure. That is very frequent."The whereabouts of a misplaced item all depends on where it's left at the airport, Haulsee said."If it's on the sidewalk, in the seats inside, that gets turned in to the airport service counter," Haulsee explained. "If it's something they left in the bin at TSA, that's something they keep. If it was on the plane, and sometimes at bigger airports and something is left in the gate area, it could be with the airline. Here, they are usually great to bring it to us. It all depends on where it gets lost."Many airports offer contact information for those who think they might have misplaced an item while traveling, Haulsee said. However, Tri-Cities Airport offers an online option for travelers to submit information on their lost item through the airport website to see if it ended up at the airport's lost and found.Users can even submit a photo of the lost item if possible to help airport employees and the website identify it in the lost and found. For example, Haulsee said someone submitted a photo to the website of an earring thought to be left behind."We use third-party software that actually matches (items)," Haulsee said. "If someone puts in a really good description of what they lost and it's in our system, it will alert us that there's a 60% or 70% match. It's really nice. We look through it also to try to match items, too."One of the more unusual items left at the airport was a Denver Broncos pool stick, which was shipped back to its Colorado owner."That's probably one of the more obscure things," Sherrill said.Those happy reunions aren't always possible, though."Our duty is to try to do the best we can to reunite the item with the passenger, doing some detective work and helping them figure out their journey to get it reunited," Sherrill said. "It's complicated because the inquiries versus us just finding the things and matching them with a person is pretty hard. That percentage is pretty low."Luggage, however, is a different case."If it is lost with an airline, they would communicate with the airline," Haulsee said. "If someone just leaves their luggage at the airport, our public safety will confiscate it. Depending on what they find, we might be able to communicate with the owner if there is contact info with it. It doesn't really happen too often, but we always try to contact people when we can."Recent technology has helped travelers keep tabs on their luggage's whereabouts, though.Apple AirTags, the Trakdot Luggage Tracker and other such devices act as a GPS offering the location of your belongings. Haulsee's suggestion, however, revolves around the apps that many airlines now offer."It would be very helpful to have the airline's app," Haulsee said. "If you have their app and you're logged in, it will track your luggage so you know when it's been taken off the aircraft and put on your connecting flight. And that app's good to have anyway because it alerts you of any delays, gate changes, things like that. It will alert you of that as long as you are set up for those notifications to come through."Lost and found items are retained by TSA for a minimum of 30 days, according to the TSA website. If an item is not claimed, it is either destroyed, turned over to a state agency for surplus property, or sold by TSA as excess property. The state can either sell it, destroy it or donate the item. Proceeds from the sales are kept by the state. However, according to TSA, lost and found items are also turned over to the airport at the end of each day.Airports, however, are required by the state to keep lost items for at least 180 days. Haulsee said a list of valuable items, such as laptops or jewelry, are submitted to the Tennessee Treasury Department. If the airport does not receive a reply within 45 days from the department, the items can be sold or donated, Haulsee said. Any proceeds have to be donated."(Neck pillows were) a huge thing that got left behind," Haulsee said. "There was one company that liked to have (neck pillows) for their residents. That was a huge thing that got left behind all the time. We would donate some of that sort of stuff. If it's jewelry, we have it appraised and then sometimes it ends up in a pawn shop. It just depends. Usually jewelers don't want to buy it."The items the airport opts to sell, Haulsee said, are listed on govdeals.com.Maybe what is most surprising is the amount of valuable items — and wallets that still contain money — that make it to the lost and found."We're pretty fortunate here," Haulsee said. "For the most part, when we find a wallet or something turned in, everything that belongs in the wallet is still there. People have gotten their iPads and laptops and other things and they've been totally shocked that it still exists and wasn't taken. That says something nice about our area."The item most often found at the airport, however, changes periodically."If you had asked me when I first got here, I would have said pillows," Sherrill said. "But now that I've been here a while, it seems like we aren't finding those or people aren't leaving them behind. Now it seems like glasses have become a thing."Locating a lost item can be frustrating, but that doesn't mean it's a lost cause. Sherrill said the message he'd like to reiterate to travelers is to keep looking and contact each airport you traveled through on your journey."Don't give up when you feel like you've reached out to the Tri-Cities Airport and we haven't been able to find your item," Sherrill said. "We want to also inform the community they should check with other airports for lost and found items and also check with the airlines. If you have connecting flights, you could end up with four claims just for one trip."It's complicated. But if they do their due diligence and do the work, they can probably find their item."• Luggage tags with identification can help airline and airport staff contact you about your belongings.• Luggage devices such as Apple AirTags, LandAirSea GPS Trackers, or the Trakdot Luggage Tracker can help you locate your luggage.• Airline apps can also offer info on your luggage whereabouts.