In my mind, "lost" implies that its location can't be figured out at that moment. While airlines certainly do lose luggage like that, many times the airline knows exactly where your bag is but due to operational reasons it didn't make the same plane.
Sometimes it goes on an earlier flight, as was the case with my bag last month flying IAH-LAX on United, a route where United has a dozen flights a day. If you're connecting, your first flight may have been delayed and they couldn't get the bag from one end of the airport to the other.
I'm not trying to say the situation doesn't suck but there is a certain logic, twisted it may be, to airline operations.
And I'm certainly not trying to defend United's actions in this instance.
Sometimes it goes on an earlier flight, as was the case with my bag last month flying IAH-LAX on United, a route where United has a dozen flights a day. If you're connecting, your first flight may have been delayed and they couldn't get the bag from one end of the airport to the other.
I'm not trying to say the situation doesn't suck but there is a certain logic, twisted it may be, to airline operations.
And I'm certainly not trying to defend United's actions in this instance.