I thought I had read before the holidays a news article stating that AC was going to use hand held scanners to track lost bags, resulting in tremendous time savings. If that it the case, then I should only take a few hours to at least do a first "sweep" of the piles at YVR and elsewhere, so that people can at least know the geographical whereabouts of the bag by tracing it online. The call centre is ridiculously outdated. How often do you call FedEx to track a package? There is no way it can handle the volumes of calls with acceptable wait times (>5mins) during IROPS. If it weren't for the website, I'd have spent the Holidays in a line at YVR... unable to rebook on the phone or in person...
Mind you, I am not familiar with the technology, but it is by no means new. FedEx, UPS, Puro, DHL use it to provide real-time tracking of hundreds of packages a day, and they too, like AC, are in the business of shipping cargo. Heck, even good'ol Canada Post can track packages accurately and continuously...
My guess is that AC staff are bogged down in the logistics of delivering the individual bags to a final address through courriers, which must be extremely time-consuming. But if people were at least informed of where their bag is, I'm sure many would gladly drive to the airport to pick it up themselves if it meant getting it back faster. At least that's a start, then they can focus on those living further away from the airport.
I'm not sure what infrastructure AC uses to track baggage but I was in YUL in November and surprisingly, my bags were in left in YYZ from a stopover.
I was able to check online when/where my bags where. Was it real-time? Probably not. Was it close to real-time? Probably which is why the call centre is in India. However, the agent was able to call the baggage centre directly to visually confirm that the bags were still in YYZ and would be enroute to YUL the following morning.
After that call... I went straight the Bay to buy some clothes and toiletries to get me through the day/evening and the following morning. Thank you CIBC Aerogold Visa! lol.
My bags with WS were delayed (not off-loaded) at YQB on Dec 19. Received bags 2 days later (actually they arrived the next day late evening but we were out of town exploring). Filed claim for incidentals of less than $50 on Dec 29 via fax. Got a call today from Westjet Baggage office in CALGARY (note: not India). Was offered a cheque for the amount of my claim or a travel credit for $200. Praised WS' handling of these travel challenges and thanked the agent for their quick response. She said credit on its way via email. Received and it is actually for $250
I KNOW how AC would have handled this and we all would know in about 3 months time. Way to go Westjet!
PS - Guess how many people will hear about this? (Oh, that's in addition to you of course )
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I thought I had read before the holidays a news article stating that AC was going to use hand held scanners to track lost bags, resulting in tremendous time savings. If that it the case, then I should only take a few hours to at least do a first "sweep" of the piles at YVR and elsewhere, so that people can at least know the geographical whereabouts of the bag by tracing it online. The call centre is ridiculously outdated. How often do you call FedEx to track a package? There is no way it can handle the volumes of calls with acceptable wait times (>5mins) during IROPS. If it weren't for the website, I'd have spent the Holidays in a line at YVR... unable to rebook on the phone or in person...
Mind you, I am not familiar with the technology, but it is by no means new. FedEx, UPS, Puro, DHL use it to provide real-time tracking of hundreds of packages a day, and they too, like AC, are in the business of shipping cargo. Heck, even good'ol Canada Post can track packages accurately and continuously...
My guess is that AC staff are bogged down in the logistics of delivering the individual bags to a final address through courriers, which must be extremely time-consuming. But if people were at least informed of where their bag is, I'm sure many would gladly drive to the airport to pick it up themselves if it meant getting it back faster. At least that's a start, then they can focus on those living further away from the airport.
they are trying to get the same system in place this year. they have tried different systems at some stations with some success. they should try to first get a baggage system that works i would think. but they are at a loss because the airport authorities have a big say in that. probably by next christmas they will have a system like fedex. Lufthansa has one now that AC is testing.
Just as a sidenote, because it's directly applicable to baggage and I've never had this happen before:
Got off the AC848 at LHR last Friday and waited.... and waited..... and waited.... no bag. Priority tagging? Nope. This wasn't even on the flight. I was previously worried that during the 14-hour layover in YYZ, the handlers would have had ample chance to either lose, "misplace", or otherwise screw up my bag delivery. Turns out this was not an unfounded worry.
My bag was calmly waiting at the lost-luggage desk. Somehow they had screwed up by getting it on the earlier flight to LHR.
I would have hoped they could tell me that it was going to be there already, saving a 45-minute wait, but it didn't technically "go missing". Now hopefully I haven't used up all my luggage karma from this trip.
EDIT: Not trying to distract or otherwise argue the point of this thread, I do realize bags go missing frequently and have seen it happen on a number of occasions, particularly over Christmas, when it's not handled well. I just wanted to comment on a good experience and rather than start a new thread, posted it here as a kind of wish that AC could more consistently provide the kind of service I see from them, rather than what I understand to be fairly common this time of year.
Last edited by DJ Bitterbarn; Jan 15, 09 at 6:30 am.
Mind you, I am not familiar with the technology, but it is by no means new. FedEx, UPS, Puro, DHL use it to provide real-time tracking of hundreds of packages a day, and they too, like AC, are in the business of shipping cargo. Heck, even good'ol Canada Post can track packages accurately and continuously...
Its amazing that FedEx et al have all those planes for a few hundred packages a day
Although AC could do better to track the bags, I will admit to having FedEX and UPS show on their website that a package was picked up and nothing further noted, before the guy rings my doorbell. Scanning isnt 100% but perhaps the dreaded RFID tag might help in instances like this.
And guess what, with this new agreement with their unions, they are going to fire some more ground workers. In other words, it's getting worse, not better.
Good thing they stopped charging for luggage. Someone would have taken them to court...
Mind you, last time I had a piece of luggage shipped, the French post office lost it. Bottom line: travel light and fill the bins.
Just something for context!
Hyatt excels in customer service
