world888traveler

Most airports have these ''plastic bags'', just like check-in points, but there you can make your luggage to be covered in plastic. At least it eliminates scratches but of course, eggs that are inside will probably break
Using styrofoam for some precious items like jewelry or glasses helped a lot in the past and still continues from now on. By exemple, I bought a set of crystal glasses, then covered the whole box in styrofoam, put it in my luggage and went from A to B, luggage was in good condition and its contents equally 100% condition, nothing broken. It would help if you put a FRAGILE tag on your luggage so most baggage handlers will handle it with care..but what will help most is to cover your items in styrofoam or anything else so they will not be broken when you open your luggage.

zkzkz

Engineering is all about trade-offs. You can have your kid-glove baggage transport system but it'll run at 1/10th the speed. If you want it to run as fast as the regular system it'll cost 10x as much. If you want it to be cheap then you have to trade off one or the other other constraint. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

So whichever airport hub which set the lowest budget and insisted on the fastest transfer time will have the roughest baggage handling system. They'll also have the lowest airport fees and fastest connection times so you'll probably pick flights connecting at that airport...



To make matters worse of course there are a dozen other constraints they're trading off at the same time. How much space in the airport the system will take, how well it'll handle oversize or odd-shape baggage, how many bags it can handle, how many check-in desks it can handle, how much money to spend up-front versus how much to spend on maintenance and upgrades later, etc etc.

Guy Betsy

When I got off my FRA-YVR flight on LH last Sept, I saw that 2 of the 4 wheels on my uprighter suitcase were missing. Thinking that LH would probably be handled by AC at YVR airport, I was very surprised to find that , no, LH handles their own.

The very ( and I mean, very) nice LH rep said no problem and filled up the form in a sec, and said to bring it to said store for the wheels to be fixed. Then she gave me 3 more sets of forms and noted the forms to the corresponding bags and told me to go home and check for additional damages if any and then give her a call so that she can attach info to the existing baggage damage order.

I went home and inspected my other 3 bags with fine tooth combs. Nope. No other damages..!

I was totally flabbergasted !

Z-man

+1

Ken hAAmer

We call that "Fast. Good. Cheap. Pick any 2."

The problem is engineers (of all kinds) and others (also of all kinds) will often use the "it's too hard" excuse as an easy out. It often continues that way until someone comes along and does it better, whereupon everyone else jumps on the bandwagon.

The "others" include the airports and airlines, and their staff. Most frequent flyers have a story or two about looking out the plane window watching rampies "load" or "unload" checked baggage. I myself have seen several instances where something has fallen off a a baggage cart and laid on the ground while tractor after tractor drives past it, ignoring the obvious.

That's not an engineering problem per se, but there's enough blame to go around.

fin 645

Eggs are pretty uniform in size and weight, and not headed for a large number of different end points, so the conveyance systems can be designed within tighter tolerances. Baggage, on the other hand, comes in all shapes and sizes, which sometimes leads to mayhem. In reality, the systems are pretty darn good (aside from the human factors already mentioned).

But I still wish I knew how LH managed to cause the handle on my bag to buckle - must have been a really good hit right on the end of the bag.

Z-man

It must have been when they were placing your bag (the egg carton) gently down on the store shelf. I opened a carton of eggs and noticed that your luggage was damaged. They did not take a video of this but you should demand comensation. $2500 would be the minumum.

Ancien Maestro

I guess egg sorting is computerized nowadays.. isn't it? So if they computerize luggage.. difference is scanning each and having luggage go down a different sized chute, and sorted to the particular plane.. thinking about it, it would be way more complicated than placing eggs in a carton?

FA probably rolled her eyes.. she probably hears a different joke every 5 minutes.

Rejuvenated

My family and friends in HK sometimes would ask us to bring back some bottled maple syrup whenever we fly back from Canada and we would normally wrap them with those plastics with bubbly pimples.

Guy Betsy

They're called "Bubble Wrap" !

Maple syrup can also be found in cans ! Better value for money !

bingocallerb22

GuyBetsy, that’s interesting. So LH covered / repaired damage to the wheels. AC says they do not cover wheels (or zippers, or handles…). So it is not an industry regulation, it is AC’s choice what to repair when they damage it? Wondering if AC is the most restrictive in the industry?

Yeah, bubble wrap and stuff, I do that. Also have a couple of small rigid plastic containers to further protect. But a recent item damaged was caused by an inertial force breaking the inside of something inside a case inside the suitcase, hence not caused from an external blow, bubble wrap wouldn’t have helped, it was already adequately protected from blows.

Fin645, me too, surprised when had the hard corner of a bag damaged, only could have been done by a significant “corner drop”.

Looking at the videos of the behind the scenes luggage conveyer systems, and baggage handlers, getting the impression that it isn’t these conveyers that are doing the damage, well except for anything protruding. Maybe it is the handlers… THAT is a cost free solvable problem. I fly LAN, where you can see them, and I never have seen a bag thrown, it is always placed on carts or belts gently, turned, and treated with respect, so that can be done.

world888traveler

Computerized systems that handle baggage from every airline are far from perfect. Every year, pax do lose their baggage somewhere and in most cases, airlines are not able to retrieve it. These baggages (and their contents) when not claimed back, end up in a big sale somewhere in middle Continental US. It's not fun to see everything you have sold to other people. Better insure your luggage and insurance will reimbourse almost everything.

When I came back on a NRT-ORD-YUL, well like everyone else, I had to pick-up my baggage and once cleared Customs and Agriculture, put this baggage to be re-routed to its final destination. You have only to put it on the conveyor belt and it will go somewhere down...but when I arrived in YUL, no track of my baggage. I had to sign forms with UA and they told me to look on a website for updates, but the website was not working well and I had to call back UA many and many times. They found my baggage 48 hours later and send it on a differnt flight to YUL. Instead of flying, we better use some ''star gates'' and be able to travel from point A to point B in a mere seconds

Ancien Maestro

Imagining X-Raying and Patting down every egg?

global happy traveller

i seen the airport baggage operations before (when bussing between terminals)..... very complex system with lots of machineries and route/paths and of course baggage....... along with the varying conditions of people's baggage/parcels

wont be suprised if a certain percentage gets damaged in the process

world888traveler

Just like real eggs. You know, ''unhealthy'' eggs are dropped off the belt, but real ones may also jump off if the belt is way too fast or narrow..