Originally Posted by
AlwaysAisle
When loading bags on planes I see baggage ground crew scanning bar codes on baggage tag as bags are loaded into a cargo hold. I assumed that scan is what the app says "loaded on plane."
On wide body aircraft bags are put into cargo container then the container get loaded into aircraft. I suspect scanning is done as bags loaded into a container, not when container get loaded into cargo hold of aircraft (cannot scan tags when bags are already inside of a container). I suspect loading into containers can happen way before aircraft arrive as bags accurate. If they wait till aircraft arrive to start loading bags in a container then it is not efficient use of turn around time of aircraft. I am suspecting that is what happend.
This is correct. Each bag is scanned at the baggage sorting area into a uniquely numbered container ( or Bin as it is called) in respect of class of travel IE Economy, Business or First and this constitutes "loaded on Plane" as per the app.Each bin is then scanned by the head loader when it arrives at the aircraft side and the loading position of each bin is also recorded IE 42L or 12R.. This information can then be used by the Flight dispatcher in the event of no-show pax to obtain the exact bin and loading position of the bags that have to be offloaded.