I think GP was referring to people that desperately wanted their belongings back.

I understand that a lot of business flyers would write off their underwear, toothbrush, and gym shoes -- but I don't think GP was suggesting those people should be dumpster diving in Alabamaba. (I'm in Australia, and I really don't have any idea how inconvenient it is to get to Alabama, and to then dive through a warehouse of bags, assuming it's even possible.)

> They're listing outlying extreme cases. Most people aren't travelling with a $64k watch in their checked baggage. It says this in the article only a third of it is worth selling at any price.

Totally agree - but the point is that in some cases (npi) there clearly were valuables worth the effort, at least from a naive calculation perspective.