According to the Fast Company Experts Blog, airlines aren’t suffering from a lost-luggage curse:

If losing luggage was a curse, the airlines would be handing out wreaths of garlic as passengers boarded. Air carriers have plenty of incentive to improve, and that incentive goes by various names: lost revenue; irate passengers; lost customer loyalty; bad PR.

A key part in the solution to lost luggage is to be found in upgrading — or even replacing — an airline’s computer system, because only a computer can fix something so complex.

Unfortunately, the writer goes on to explain, putting a new system into place isn’t easy, since they can’t shut down the old one while installing the new one (he likens it to “doing open-heart surgery on a patient who’s walking around”). So, hold onto your luggage and pray to the airline powers-that-be that your stuff will end up in the same time zone you do.