[QUOTE=jsintexas;25954139]I travel extensively to Asia on a regular basis, 6 trips per year along with trips to Europe.
I travel with a carry on rolling bag only on trips less than 1 week. (Hotels have laundry service) When I travel longer I have 2 identical rolling bags one I check and one I carry on. I split my clothing between the 2 to ensure that I have 3-4 days in each.
That way I have never left with nothing if my checked bag is delayed.

This year AA introduced baggage tracking on their mobile website. When you check a bag you can usually, before you board, see that your bag was loaded on the flight.[/QUOTE]

When you check your bag at the check in counter a bar coded bag tag is
attached to that bag.
The bag leaves the counter on a conveyor that has bar code reading portals
in the baggage dungeon ah er baggage make up area.
When a bag with a certain tag passes one of these portals if it has the right
flight data it is bumped off onto another conveyor belt.
For flights with multiple stops the sub-conveyor may have more belts.
All the bags that wind up in a designated area are then taken by a tractor/tug
with cart to the gate the flight is departing from to await loading.
As the individual bags are loaded an agent may have a hand held scanner
scanning each of the bags as they are loaded.
Thus at this point with your cell phone apt you can see the progress also
the weight & balance load control agent can determine how many bags
are where on the aircraft. Some aircraft have multiple cargo holds.
If the flight is a large wide body equipment the bags may be fitted into one
of the several large containers and loaded into the cargo hold designed for
the containers. Before loading these containers all the bags inside are
scanned to know what each container holds again a location and weight &
balance issue.

In the case of a large number of baggage not making the flight - it would
appear that a whole container of bags was left off for reasons undetermined
or speculated at this time. Bumping a container off a flight is the easiest and
fastest way to remove weight. Manually unloading individual bags is time
consuming and requiring men and machinery who may be doing something
else in another airport area (flight).

The baggage with the yellow Priority tags as I understand are loaded at the
very last to be first off and to the claim area/transfer point for the First/
Business and other passengers with significant status.
This could lead to a bad error if the one container with these bags is bumped
because it was the first one in front of the cargo door and easiest to access.
'BUT IF THIS DONE - IT DOESN'T SPEAK WELL to the clients of Delta/KLM
who are the most valued let alone for any customers who baggage is bumped !
The cargo container that perhaps should have been off loaded to remedy this
was the first one loaded and is positioned in the back of the cargo hold
causing a huge delay and load distribution to remove it !
So if the Gross weight was an issue someone did not do their load planning
correctly anticipating this event. This somebody should have their profit
sharing adjusted for this goof !
Loading the one or more containers last if there was room for the weight
would not have been such a bad deal resulting in a slight tolerable delay of
baggage to the customer !
I am second guessing that someone did not have their thinking cap on that day !

A neighbor who worked for a major airline in maintenance commented that
an A.O.G. part would ordinarily not be any bigger than a customers suitcase
and would be no problem for handling and loading in a cargo hold.
In some cases the A.O.G. cargo is loaded topside in the cockpit to assure
accountability and immediate accessibility on arrival where it was needed !

AND YES interesting that the A330-300 is having load problems - maybe
Delta/KLM should adjust their loading priorities and leave the cargo to
FedEx UPS or other all cargo carriers.