Originally Posted by
Kevlondon
to the particularly lame reply above - in an era of computerised, automated baggage operations, it does not seem unreasonable to expect that every piece of luggage is scanned repeatedly from the time you check it in. Therefore, 24 hours after my bag should have been reunited with me, is it unreasonable to think BA should be able to tell me when it was last scanned? Surely they would know if it made it into my flight or any other flight. It’s the lack of information that is pissing me off.
The airlines (generally) did computerise this at an early stage, which means the 1970s. And unfortunately that has held back this area ever since. Much of the underlying technology and user interface looks to be real time, when in reality there are still batch jobs running once a day, in some cases. Moreover the interface that you see, via WorldTracer, only gives a subset of information, and the argument is that it wouldn't help you to know more. AA invested hugely in this area about 8 years ago and now they do have on their app a real time tracker of checked luggage. That still can go wrong of course. For BA they have always been reluctant to spend money in this area. It needs either to be a "must do" project (e.g. changes to the law) or a "business case" project, so 20% on ROACE. That's an impossible barrier when it comes to this area, made worse by the fact that unlike Iberia and Vueling, BA have to bounce most IT work via IAG.
Occasionally there are hints of low-cost initiatives to track bags within T5 but I've not seen anything suggesting global reach.Interestingly most of these schemes seem to bolt on a new process rarhter take away or update an old process, since the latter is the expensive bit. Right now you best not think about it too much, just buy things you need, and take photos of the receipts. Going forward, try to travel hand baggage only and check only what you can survive without for say 4 days.