Behind-the-scenes video reveals what really happens to your luggage after you check it in

After checking in your bag at an airport, how much thought do you give to where exactly it goes? A new video answers all your questions.

Your bag could have travelled more than a kilometre after you check it in before it finally gets loaded onto your plane.

That’s according to a blogger who went behind the scenes at one of the busiest airports in the world.

Travel blogger Jeb Brooks went behind the scenes at Atlanta International Airport to see what happened to checked luggage after it leaves the passenger.

Bags at some airports can travel over a kilometre from one end to the other.

Jeb explained that as soon as you checked your bag in, it was sent onto a conveyor belt – and there are over 55km of them at Atlanta Airport, considered one of the busiest in the world.

He went underground at the Delta Air Lines hub to see where some of those bags went, with one belt stretching over a kilometre alone to take luggage from one end of the airport to the other.

Jeb explained that airports used a system that allowed them to find any bag quickly in case it needed to be rerouted.

They use an RFID scanner, which is often used to scan barcodes, with the luggage and the tags on them.

The airline is able to track the bag and send it to the new aircraft.

Heading to the airport early? If you check in your bag hours before your flight, it gets sent to cold storage.

The suitcases are then put into the hold, ready for takeoff

It is then held out of the way of all the other bags before it has to be loaded.

Most of the conveyor belts have marks such as dots on them.

This is so workers know where to drop bags to “reduce the risk of blockage”.

When the bags need to be loaded on the flight, ground crew are given paperwork explaining the weight and balance of the luggage being loaded to the plane to make sure the cargo hold is even.

There are also screens throughout the handling area so they know when bags are due to fly and to make sure they don’t get lost in the system.

Ground crew can then avoid blockages by spreading the bags out

If there isn’t enough cargo or luggage on the flight, sandbags are added to the hold to make sure it weighs enough.

After the suitcases are sent onto the plane by conveyor belt, handlers can then stack the bags underneath to make sure they all fit.

Passengers can then board the flight knowing their bag is safely beneath them.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission