srw
It's a bit more complicated than that...
On the other hand when I left an e-reader on a plane to - or from - Kirkwall - I forget which - it was never seen again. Despite telling the ground handlers immediately I got off the plane, and even quoting the specific seat I'd been sitting in.As another example of how this should work, some while ago I managed to leave my purse on a train. Customer services at the station located me (via a store card) and contacted me before I'd even noticed the loss, and handed it back the same evenng as I got onto the train.
I can't find a link for it, as it was too long ago - but the first time @srw and I visited Orkney there was an article in the local paper about someone who dropped his wallet on the tarmac in North Ronaldsay, and had it handed back to him as he got of his plain in Inverness - the staff having found it, checked all the various flights (OK, this is Orkney, so not a huge job) and managed to get the wallet to the right place to meet the guy.
There's a difference between the customer service mentality of a decent company (Chiltern Railways and Loganair respectively) and a bunch of sharks (Rynair and Stansted).