Airline lost or damaged your baggage: your compensation rights

You land in Melbourne, Sydney, or Perth, wait at the carousel, and your bag never appears — or it arrives crushed, with the contents damaged. The airline hands you a reference number and a form. What happens next, and what are you actually owed?

Baggage claims sit at the intersection of several legal frameworks: the Montreal Convention for international carriage, a separate domestic carrier-liability regime for flights within Australia, and the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) alongside both.

Quick answer

Your rights depend on whether your flight was international or domestic, and on whether the bag was lost, damaged or merely delayed. In most cases the practical remedy is compensation for your proven loss, up to a legal limit, claimed in writing within a strict deadline.

For international flights, the Montreal Convention generally applies. For checked baggage lost, destroyed or damaged while in the airline's charge, the airline is generally liable up to a cap (currently 1,519 Special Drawing Rights per passenger), subject to narrow defences. For delayed baggage, it can avoid liability by proving it took all reasonable measures to avoid the damage. Complain in writing within 7 days for damage and 21 days for delay.

For domestic flights, the Civil Aviation (Carriers' Liability) Act 1959 (Cth) and corresponding state and territory legislation are the primary framework for lost or damaged baggage, with shorter written-complaint windows and limits of $3,000 for checked and $300 for cabin baggage, unless your contract of carriage specifies more. The ACL (due care and skill, misleading conduct, and section 64) is an additional layer, not a route around those limits.

Write to the airline first, inside the deadline. If that fails and the airline is Qantas, Jetstar or Virgin Australia, the Airline Customer Advocate may help; a tribunal or court with jurisdiction is the binding option. fairgo can help you draft that letter.

What the law actually says

The Montreal Convention (international flights)

Australia has given the Montreal Convention force through the Civil Aviation (Carriers' Liability) Act 1959 (Cth). It applies to international carriage: where the places of departure and destination are in two countries that are parties to the Convention, or in one party country with an agreed stopping place in another country. It doesn't apply to every route that happens to touch Australia.

The Convention treats the three baggage scenarios differently, and conflating them is a common source of confusion:

• Lost or damaged checked baggage. The airline is liable for destruction, loss or damage if the event took place on board or while the checked bag was in its charge, up to the cap. The defences are narrow: the damage resulted from an inherent defect, quality or vice of the baggage, or your own negligence caused or contributed to it (each only to that extent). The "all reasonable measures" defence does not apply here. If a checked bag hasn't arrived 21 days after it should have, you can enforce your rights against the airline as if it were lost.
• Delayed baggage. The airline is liable for damage caused by the delay — in practice, reasonable out-of-pocket expenses — but it can escape liability by proving it took all measures that could reasonably be required to avoid the damage, or that it was impossible to take them.
• Cabin and unchecked baggage. Liability is fault-based: the airline is liable if the damage resulted from its fault or that of its servants or agents.

The cap. The Convention limits liability per passenger in Special Drawing Rights (a unit of account set by the International Monetary Fund). Under the revised limits published by the Commonwealth Department of Infrastructure, effective 28 December 2024, the baggage limit is 1,519 SDR per passenger. The limits are revised periodically, so confirm the current figure before you calculate a claim.

Strict time limits. For damaged checked baggage, complain in writing within seven days of receiving the bag. For delayed baggage, within 21 days of the date it was placed at your disposal. If no complaint is made in time, the Convention says no action lies against the carrier, except in the case of fraud. Separately, the right to damages is extinguished if court action isn't brought within two years of arrival at the destination (or the date the aircraft should have arrived, or the carriage stopped).

The Convention is not one option among several. It says any action for damages, however founded — under the Convention, in contract, in tort or otherwise — can only be brought subject to its conditions and limits. So the ACL generally can't be used to get around the Convention cap. How the two interact in a particular case can be complex, and a genuinely separate issue, such as a misleading representation about baggage handling, may need its own analysis.

Domestic flights: carrier liability first

For carriage within Australia, the starting point is the domestic carrier-liability regime in the Civil Aviation (Carriers' Liability) Act 1959 (Cth), complemented by state legislation to create what the Department describes as a national uniform scheme. Under it, the carrier is liable for the destruction or loss of, or damage to, a passenger's baggage during the carriage by air "under this Part, and not otherwise", unless it proves it took all necessary measures to avoid the loss or that it was impossible to take them.

Its written-complaint windows are shorter than most people expect:

• Damage to registered (checked) baggage, or loss of part of an item: within three days of receiving it.
• Loss or destruction of a whole item of registered baggage: within 21 days from when it should have been placed at your disposal.
• Non-registered (cabin) baggage: within three days from when your carriage ended.

A court may allow a late complaint in special circumstances, but don't rely on that. Don't treat a Property Irregularity Report as your written complaint either: send separate written notice inside the window.

The framework also sets monetary limits: $3,000 for registered baggage and $300 for other baggage, unless the contract of carriage specifies a higher amount. Check your airline's conditions before you calculate a claim rather than assuming the statutory figure is your ceiling. The right to damages is extinguished if court action isn't brought within two years after the aircraft arrives at its destination.

A bag that's only delayed. These domestic rules deal with destruction, loss and damage rather than delay as such. For a bag that's merely late, check the airline's conditions of carriage: the Department of Infrastructure says that if you're away from home, airlines may reimburse reasonable expenses for essential items, such as toiletries or clothing, while you wait. The ACL guarantees may also be relevant.

Where the ACL fits

The ACL guarantees apply where you acquired the carriage as a consumer under section 3 of the ACL: the price paid or payable was $100,000 or less, or the service is of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use (either is enough). Passenger air travel is generally such a service, so most travellers, including business travellers, qualify; check how section 3 applies to you. Separately, section 63 takes contracts for transporting or storing goods for the purposes of a business out of the services guarantees, so commercial goods carried for a business may be treated differently.

For the loss of or damage to the bag itself, the aviation carrier-liability framework is what governs liability. The ACL is more likely to matter for other aspects of the service, such as how the airline handled your complaint, or misleading statements about baggage handling. The most relevant guarantee is section 60 — services rendered with due care and skill.

Where the ACL does apply to a failure, the practical remedy is usually damages for reasonably foreseeable loss caused by it (section 267(4)), if you can evidence the loss, took reasonable steps to limit it and don't claim the same loss twice, subject to any aviation liability limits. Cancelling the contract is rarely the point once the flight is over: a refund under section 269 covers only the part of the service not yet consumed.

Whether a failure is major turns on section 268. It is major if a reasonable consumer fully acquainted with the nature and extent of the failure wouldn't have acquired the service; the service is substantially unfit for a purpose services of that kind are commonly supplied for, unfit for a particular purpose you made known, or not of such a nature, or quality, state or condition, that it might reasonably be expected to achieve a result you made known, and can't easily and within a reasonable time be remedied; or it creates an unsafe situation. Two or more failures that aren't major on their own are together a major failure if a reasonable consumer fully acquainted with them, taken as a whole, wouldn't have acquired the service (section 268(2)). A lost bag may or may not be a major failure of the carriage service, depending on that test.

The ACL also prohibits misleading or deceptive conduct under section 18. Representations about baggage handling, security or liability that turn out to be false may found a separate claim.

Under section 64 of the ACL, a term in the conditions of carriage is void to the extent it purports to exclude, restrict or modify the consumer guarantees or your remedies. (For services not of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use, section 64A may let a contract limit liability to supplying the service again or its cost, unless you show reliance isn't fair or reasonable.) Aviation liability legislation imposes its own limits and procedures, and section 64 does not sweep those away.

When this applies (and when it doesn't)

• Montreal Convention: international carriage as defined above. Time limits are strict.
• Domestic carrier liability: carriage within Australia, with the short complaint windows set out above.
• ACL: an additional layer alongside either, where you acquired the service as a consumer under section 3 — not a route around the aviation limits, procedures or timeframes.

The frameworks are less likely to help when:

• The baggage caused its own damage. Where the airline shows the loss came from an inherent defect, quality or vice of the bag — one already structurally compromised, for example — Convention liability may not attach.
• You carried high-value items without taking the available steps. Airline conditions of carriage may restrict liability for, or the carriage of, valuables such as jewellery, electronics and cash, and the limit may sit well below what you lost. Whether such a condition is effective can depend on the aviation liability framework and, for ACL claims, section 64. For international carriage, the cap doesn't apply in the same way if you made a special declaration of interest in delivery when you checked the bag and paid any supplementary sum required, where the airline offers this. Cabin baggage where permitted, and travel insurance, may be safer options.
• You missed the complaint windows. Seven days (damage) or 21 days (delay) internationally; three days (damage or cabin baggage) or 21 days (loss of a whole item) domestically. Missing them can end the claim.
• You missed the time limit to sue. Under both the Convention and the domestic legislation, the right to damages is extinguished if court action isn't brought within two years. ACL claims are subject to limitation laws and forum rules too.
• The loss happened before check-in or after collection. Liability attaches to events while the bag is in the airline's charge or during the carriage by air.

What to do today

1. Report it before you leave the baggage hall. Lodge a Property Irregularity Report (PIR) at the airline's baggage desk and keep the reference number. A PIR is valuable evidence, but don't rely on it as your written complaint. Send a separate written complaint within the window.
2. Photograph everything — the bag, the damage, the contents, or, if the bag is missing, the claim tag and boarding pass.
3. Keep all receipts. Essential items bought while waiting — toiletries, clothing, medication — are the out-of-pocket expenses a delay claim is built from.
4. Write to the airline inside the window. International: seven days for damage, 21 days for delay. Domestic: three days for damage to checked baggage, 21 days for loss of a whole item, three days for cabin baggage. For a lost bag, write promptly too. State the flight details, describe the loss, attach the PIR reference and photographs, and say what you are claiming.
5. Calculate your claim. Lost baggage: the value of the items, with receipts or other evidence of what they were worth. Damaged: repair cost, or replacement if beyond repair. Delayed: your reasonable out-of-pocket expenses. Check the applicable limit.
6. Check your travel insurance. You can lodge with your insurer in parallel; a policy may cover amounts above the airline's limit. Review the policy and its Product Disclosure Statement for what's covered, any claim requirements, and what happens if you also recover from the airline.

If you are not sure how to frame the written complaint, fairgo can generate a demand letter that references the right framework for your situation.

What if the business refuses

If the airline rejects your claim or does not respond within a reasonable time:

The Airline Customer Advocate. If your complaint is about Qantas, Jetstar or Virgin Australia and you've already complained to the airline, the Airline Customer Advocate may help. It describes its service as free, applies eligibility criteria (including that the event happened within the last 12 months), and can't make decisions that bind the airline. Participating airlines can change, so check before lodging.

The proposed aviation ombuds scheme. The Aviation Consumer Protection Bill 2026 would set up an Aviation Consumer Ombuds Scheme and a charter of minimum standards expected to cover lost and damaged baggage. As at October 2026 it was before the Senate and isn't yet law; check the Department of Infrastructure's website for the current position.

Your state or territory consumer body. It may help, for example by contacting the business or conciliating, if your complaint meets its criteria. Most expect you to have tried to resolve the matter with the business first, and eligibility rules vary by state and dispute type (in the ACT, for example, statutory conciliation applies only where the remedy you seek is worth $5,000 or less). These bodies don't make binding orders in ordinary consumer disputes and can't make the business settle. Contact details are at /agencies.

A tribunal or court with jurisdiction. In NSW, Victoria, Queensland, the ACT and the NT, a tribunal hears many consumer claims within its limits; in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, ordinary consumer claims go to the Magistrates Court. Jurisdiction depends on each forum's enabling legislation, the type of claim and the amount — and for carrier-liability or Convention claims the jurisdictional position can be genuinely complex. Confirm the forum and its current thresholds on the official site before filing, and consider advice for a Convention claim. Check current filing fees, and ask about fee exemptions, waivers or deferrals if cost is a concern. See our guide to choosing the right tribunal or court for the consumer-tribunal picture.

For NSW, see how to escalate a complaint in NSW.

Common mistakes

• Not lodging a PIR — or assuming it is enough. Without one it is harder to show the loss happened in the airline's care. But don't rely on a PIR as your written complaint; that is how people miss the window.
• Assuming domestic flights have no deadlines. They have shorter ones. Three days for damage to a checked bag is easy to miss while you are still travelling.
• Treating the cap as an entitlement. It is a ceiling, not an automatic payment; you still need to prove your losses.
• Claiming for items you cannot substantiate. An unsupportable item can undermine the credible ones.
• Accepting the first offer without checking it. Once you accept a settlement you may not be able to claim more.
• Going straight to the ACCC. It doesn't resolve individual disputes.

Related reading

• Airline cancelled your flight: refund, credit, or rebook?
• Flight delayed or cancelled: what airlines owe you in Australia
• Service didn't meet expectations? Your ACL rights explained
• Business refused your refund? Here's what to do next

This article is general information about Australian Consumer Law, not legal advice. It also touches on frameworks and pathways outside the ACL — the Montreal Convention, the domestic carrier-liability regime under the Civil Aviation (Carriers' Liability) Act 1959 and its state and territory counterparts, airline conditions of carriage, travel insurance, the Airline Customer Advocate, the proposed Aviation Consumer Ombuds Scheme, state and territory consumer bodies, tribunals and courts, the ACCC, and limitation laws — whose scope, rules, thresholds, time limits and processes sit outside the ACL or can change. Confirm the current position with the relevant body before lodging any complaint or claim. For advice on your specific case, see your state or territory consumer body — full list at /agencies.