psychopompos

I witnessed a rather unusual situation a few weeks ago and I'm wondering if I should've done something differently and whether any lessons can be learned from it.

My family was occupying all of row 3 on short-haul flight. At some point towards the end of boarding another family comes on, small kid screaming, the adults bickering loudly. They get to around where we're sitting and after a bit more arguing (probably not more than a minute after they'd got to that point) they decide that they're not flying and get off. A short while later boarding was complete, but of course offloading their checked was taking a while. In the meantime, a member of the cabin crew starts asking all the CE passengers about whether the bags in the bin are theirs and ends up identifying one which no one is claiming.

I'm assuming that's standard procedure to ensure that passengers who offloaded themselves didn't leave anything on board, however at that point I'm also sure that the bag doesn't belong to that family because it was in the bin before we boarded.I said "I think this was here before they boarded" to the attendant, who proceeded to walk up and down the aisle with the bag at shoulder level trying to find its owner; several PAs were also made. Eventually, since no one claimed the bag, off it went. I'm assuming that's standard procedure as well?

Fast forward to LHR, and the passenger sitting in 4A exclaims loudly: "I just got a text saying my bag is still at the origin airport. What do you mean it got offloaded!". An anrgry conversation with the CC ensues, and despite my protestations my wife starts getting involved, saying things like "He was walking up and down the aisle for minutes". Surpisingly that seemed to calm the passenger down and we ended up disembarking uneventfully.

Would the passenger have got their bag delivered eventually? I'm guessing the text didn't come from BA, possibly ground crew found a nametag or something...

Should I have been more proactive and vocal about my certainty that the bag didn't belong to the offloaded family?

I guess my 2 conclusions are: put your bag in the bins on the other side of the aisle and don't be oblivous to your environment even when it's a comfortable and familiar one.

dreamingbeyond

My view is: not your problem! But good of you to mention it to cabin crew.

Sounds like cabin crew did what they needed, PA announcements and running the bag up and down. Not their fault that the passenger didn't appear to be paying attention.

chacor

I think I would probably have done the same thing as OP's wife and defended the crew. Pax's fault for not saying anything the first time round with multiple attempts to ID the bag.

scottishpoet

Cabin crew did what they needed to do. If nobody claimed the bsg that is their problem. Everyone would have seen what was going on. No need for you to have done more than you did.

What happened was standard practice, i have had it happen on an air berlin flight when a drunk passenger was removed from the aircraft for refusing to fasten their seat belt.

hungry

What situation does a whole family get on board a flight, and then within a matter of minutes changes their mind and get off?!?

its not like getting in the car for a drive to the country, or to pop to Tesco, then deciding against it.

I think I have too much of a normal life for this modern world…

crazy8534

All I would say is that travelling as a family when the kids were much younger, I was in the middle of some pretty dramatic reversals of plan from time to time.
I could imagine that a weekend away that had got off to a particularly bad start might, at some point, just become not worth the hassle!

corporate-wage-slave

In a way I wish more people did this, ideally before boarding, and the airlines made it easier to just be rebooked on the next service. Admittedly easier said than done given how full BA's flights are at the moment. But otherwise it would be a better world if people having arguments could just pause, have a coffee, reassess things, talk a bit and listen a lot. Fairly basic stuff and there is actually some science behind this, but it probably needs encouragement. Once people have boarded, at a certain point if it gets too difficult to reconcile baggage then it may involve offloading everyone and starting boarding from scratch, so while 4A had an unfortunate outcome, it could have been worse. Hopefully their bag was sent on fairly soon thereafter.

The text would have come from BA automatically once the delayed bag had been marked as such in the computer, probably down in LHR warehouse. The status change triggers this message. One reason for checking your mobile number is properly recorded in the booking.

simoflyer

I experienced a similar situation on a Copenhagen - Heathrow flight..Everyone seated and ready for take off but a single bag was sitting in the aisle just in front of me. Cabin crew came round and assumed it was mine then walked up and down the plane asking who it belonged too..With no responses it was taken off the aircraft. Fast forward to mid flight and a passenger starts looking around the seat areas near to us..Turns out it was his with all his belongings: phone, car keys wallets etc�Not a happy person�

Genius1

As a cabin bag, how did the system know whose it was in order to send the text?

corporate-wage-slave

As soon as a name and flight number is established, from a tag or any contents inside the bag, a label is generated and with it a status change if held at LHR. The text number is pulled off the PNR.

psychopompos

I got the impression that they were neither very experienced flyers nor very adept at dealing with their son's tantrums. And this happened on the last weekend of the English half-term break, which probably meant that getting to London was both necessary and expensive...

Genius1

I guess I was assuming no tag (common for carry-ons I'd have thought) and was querying whether they'd open the bag.

flygirl68

Years ago whilst boarding a flight back from CDG, a briefcase appeared in the vicinity of the door. Kept our eye on it then when boarding had finished and it was still there I made PAs asking for the owner, tried to marry up the initials from the briefcase with the passenger list. I walked up and down that 767 both aisles, walking back up backwards with the briefcase in the air, asking as I went, lots of smiles from the passengers and shaking of heads. Just after doors to manual the inter phone pinged “err have a passenger asking where his briefcase is”…. “If the pax’s initials are XXX, it’s in CDG”…
In this situation you did as much as you could, but unless anyone actually takes ownership, it won’t be staying on.

catandmouse

Sounds a bit like pax was immersed in their phone, rather than anything else. Suppose they wouldn't listen or even less look at safety briefings.

Howard Long

Indeed, and to charitable, they might've been wearing noise cancellers in an effort to avoid the commotion.