Your bag did not arrive at Pulkovo: what to sign before you leave reclaim

The belt at Pulkovo keeps turning, the last suitcases are gone, and yours was not among them. The first instinct is to wait — perhaps it will arrive on the next flight. That is exactly the mistake that later costs both money and nerves: once you leave the baggage reclaim area, proving that your luggage never arrived becomes far harder.

Do not leave the reclaim area

Everything you need to do is done right there, behind the belt. In the reclaim hall there is a baggage tracing desk — it goes by several names: Lost and Found, Baggage Tracing, Розыск багажа. If you cannot see it, find an airline representative or an airport employee; they are obliged to take you there.

Waiting "just in case" makes sense only until the belt stops and the flight number is taken off the display. After that, go straight to the desk.

The PIR report is the only document that counts

At the desk they draw up a PIR — a Property Irregularity Report. It records that the baggage did not arrive and starts the official search. Without it there are no claims, no compensation and no search: as far as the carrier is concerned, nothing happened.

The report records:

• your name and contact details — a phone number and an email that actually reach you;
• the flight number and date;
• the baggage tag number — the stub stuck to your boarding pass at check-in;
• a description of the suitcase: type, colour, material, distinguishing marks;
• the address where you will be staying, so the bag can be delivered once it is found.

The report is made in two copies. One stays with you — check that you have been given it, and photograph it straight away. It also carries the reference number of the search file and a phone number for status updates.

A word about the tag: its stub is usually attached to the boarding pass or handed over separately. The habit of keeping your boarding pass until the end of the trip pays off here — without the tag number the search starts more slowly.

How long it takes

Most delayed baggage turns up within a day or two: usually the bag simply missed a connection and travels on the next flight. The official search period is 21 days. If the bag has not been found by then it is considered lost, and the conversation moves from searching to compensation.

Claim deadlines differ for domestic and international flights: on domestic routes you have six months, on international ones seven days from the moment the baggage should have been delivered. That difference matters — on an international flight you cannot afford to wait.

What you can spend while the bag is missing

If you have arrived on a trip rather than at home, the carrier reimburses reasonable essentials — clothing and toiletries. "Reasonable" is the operative word: receipts from a supermarket or an inexpensive shop will be accepted, a receipt from a boutique almost certainly will not. Keep every receipt and do not throw away the packaging.

Ask at the desk whether your airline has a fixed allowance for the first day — many do, and it is paid without argument.

If the bag is never found

Compensation depends on whether you declared a value at check-in. If you did not, domestic carriage is settled by weight: no more than six hundred roubles per kilogram. A fifteen-kilogram suitcase comes to nine thousand roubles, and "there was a laptop in it" does not change that figure.

On international flights the limit is calculated differently and is generally higher, but it is likewise unrelated to what the bag actually contained. That is precisely why valuables, documents, medicines and electronics travel in the cabin — not out of caution, but because no one will pay for them.

A declared value is a paid option at check-in and changes the arithmetic: compensation is then based on the declared sum. If you are carrying something genuinely expensive, it is the only mechanism that works.

What to do in advance

• Photograph the suitcase and its contents before departure — the best possible description for the report.
• Put a note with your name and phone number inside: external tags come off.
• Remove old stickers from previous flights — they confuse the sorting system.
• Documents, medicines, chargers and a change of clothes go in the cabin.
• With a connection under an hour the odds of the bag falling behind rise sharply — leave a margin.

In short

Do not leave the reclaim area, file a PIR and take your copy, keep the tag stub. The search runs for 21 days; claims are accepted for six months on domestic flights and seven days on international ones. Keep receipts for essentials. And the rule that always holds: whatever you cannot afford to lose flies in the cabin with you.

Cover photo: Pulkovo Airport. Photo: Bestalex, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.