I returned from Orlando to Manchester last Monday morning on VS76. We checked in 4 cases in PE and only 3 have made it back so far. Does anyone have any experience of losing a case with Virgin or in Orlando? If so any thoughts on how likely it is I’ll see it again? Virgin say it’s very rare they ever go missing but it’s been a week now with no sign.
I've not had experience of any lost bags (thankfully) but I think I would tend to agree with VS that this must be a fairly rare occurrence. As the VS76 is a direct flight, even if the bags were checked in at Disney Springs or at MCO, they should all have been down the baggage system belt pretty close together. If the bags were in good condition with no loose straps to snag on the baggage system, there is no reason why they should not all have made the flight.
There is, of course, the TSA screening process. Whilst reports of alleged TSA theft seem to have dropped, it would be highly unusual for an entire bag to be nicked by a dishonest TSA employee - you would imagine they'd just be after the small high-value items that are easy to smuggle out of the workplace.
Even if the bag-tag got ripped off, the check-in staff peel off a secondary sticker from the tag [with the same barcode on] and stick it directly onto the bag. Possible that the main bag tag got ripped off? Yes. An awful lot less likely that both the main tag & secondary sticker got ripped off.
I hope the OP's missing bag turns up.