Traveler's Tip

Recently I was meeting two friends at SFO [San Francisco International Airport] who were returning from a fishing trip in Belize. They checked their bags through to SFO but had a few hours layover in Dallas. Their plane arrived and we waited as the luggage spit out of the conveyor onto the carousel. After several stops and restarts [and over an hour] it became apparent that their luggage was not on that flight. A line was forming at the luggage claim office and as we approached we saw their bags in a cordoned off area. They had made it on an earlier flight. So... if you have a layover and your bags are checked through you may want to do a cursory inspection of the holding area in baggage claim. It may save you some time.