I agree with "apirchik" that it depends on how they load the aircraft. Most baggage handlers I have observed loading seem to get that part right. They put the priority bags aside and load them last. So far, so good.

However, being last on the plane means they are coming out first. This is were the airline procedures seem to fail. The bags come out first, gets loaded first on to the cart and get stuck behind a tone of non-priority bags. When it comes time to unload, there are a couple of minutes of non-priority bags on the belt before the priority bags come out.

"At least that's how Delta sees it"

/Pete