The other day I flew QX SEA-MSO. I left one of my bags on the A la carte cart and planned to pick it up in MSO.

When I got off the plane to get my bag, it wasn't on the cart. The baggage handler on the tarmac asked me what it looked like. She explained she had seen it, but since there was no Al La Carte tag on it, they couldn't give it to me plane side, in case FAA or other inspectors were watching. Since there was no tag, it had to go to baggage claim.

Okay, I understand the security concern -- I guess. W/o the green tag, they can't prove it was screened by TSA as passenger bags and theoretically could have been screened as checked baggage and just lost the bar code stickers.

Fortunately, MSO is small, the trip from the plane to baggage claim is fairly short, and the bag was stiffer than the normal bags I A La Carte.

However, this could have been a disaster for my bag if I was changing planes in SEA. If they forgot to tag it on MSO, SEA wouldn't have turned it over to me. If I had a connection, the bag couldn't have made it because is had no barcode claim on it. And with a tight connection, I could not have gone to baggage claim to pick it up and then reclear security. Plus the bag (and most A La Carte bags, I imagine, might not survive Menzies.

For the trip back to SEA, I managed to get that bag under the seat of the Q400, which had surprisingly more room than I expected.

The lesson of the story -- don't get on the QX plane until you see them put that green tag on your carry out.