Tips to prevent theft in your airline cabin baggage

A note of caution to all friends and colleagues travelling within Asia: Your cabin bags placed in the overhead compartment are NOT SAFE FROM THEFT, inside the flight. 

After having had one personal experience, seen another happening right in front of my eyes and hearing reports of several cases in China, I thought it fit to caution everyone in my social network.

The classic modus operandi of the thief would be to casually occupy the aisle seat just below where you stow your bag, pretend to pull out the bag as if it were his, ruffle through the contents looking only for cash, and then put it back as if everything were normal. They also mostly never exit the airport and take a connecting hopping flight to the next destination, again to rob some unsuspecting victim.

Why only cash? Because it cannot be tracked down in most instances, unlike tech gadgets or credit cards.

As of now, this has been reported to happen a lot within China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Indonesia - mostly done by mainland Chinese people.

How can you prevent this from happening to you ? 

(10 TIPS TO PREVENT THIS THEFT, headline style learnt from Buzzfeed)

1# Always keep your money, credit cards and passport on your person and NOT inside the cabin bag.  

2# Lock the crucial compartments of your cabin bag

3# Place the cabin bag in the diagonally OPPOSITE compartment where you would always have an eye on it.

4# Better still, specially in short haul flights, keep your cabin bags under the seat in front of you.

5# Look out for people who suddenly change seats mid-flight and occupy aisle seats (specially in the less occupied flights)

6# Raise the alarm at the slightest cause for concern, even if it may be socially disconcerting to do so.

7# Never travel without travel insurance. Better, if you are covered by some corporate travel cover.

8# It is tough, specially in red eye flights, but it is better not to fall asleep on flights, specially if your cabin bag has some valuables in it - and you are unable to follow steps 1 to 7 above!

9# Share this post with as many fliers as you can - so that the community can alert itself and take precautionary measures.

10# Pray for a less criminal world :)

Hope this is of use to most of us. 

Best regards

Subu