Does Priority really mean Priority?
 

I just got home. My priority tagged luggage came out on the belt in the middle of the back in YWG. While driving home, I tried to remember how often I have waited for luggage that did not come out in front of the pack as advertised by AC. My conclusion: more than my fair share!. My question to the group: are others arriving at the same conclusion ? Or am I getting paranoid in my later years? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Actually, in the past while my bags have come down -- 90% of the time -- in the first grouping with the priority tag, However, this is only in the past few months. Prior to that, even with Cdn, it was very inconsistent.

You are not alone!!! and its not just AC (actually I though AC was pretty good compared to UA) Other star carriers like SQ have it down to science I've found.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/004748.html

I find that there are too many "priority baggages" out there because of todays' growing numbers of elite tier members. Now with Star alliance, any elite members from those airlines can receive a "priority tag". It's not that hard nowadays to achieve elite status which offer baggage priority handling, and as a result, there are way too many bags that have to be handle with priority. My experience from YVR-HKG is that it's not unnatural to wait for 10-15 min until ALL the priority baggages comes out, thus, whether you can REALLY pick up quick is matter of luck.

I think the industry should classify between levels of "priority". On JAL, there are 2 levels of priority, first class, business class. I think at least top tier members and actual business class passengers should be picking up their baggages before the Elite who travels on discounted Y.

cheers*

It's certainly inconsistent but generally speaking my experience has been that bags tagged with the priority day/glo tags come out first i.e. marginally quicker than reg. tagged bags.

One exception to this is YYZ where they have (had - I think they may have removed them - someone please clarify) special priority carousels. I always remember when picking up bags at these carousels that it took the same time as the regular bags.

Vasbyte: It appears to be quite some time since the YYZ T2 International arrivals Priority carousel actually works.

[This message has been edited by Flyaway (edited 04-21-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Flyaway (edited 04-21-2001).]

For those checking your bags on MX -- even if they are originally tagged in Canada by AC, but connecting at an intermediary point to a MX metal flight -- they add another tag for priority purposes. It is a big white and blue one which reads: "Executive Class|Distinguished Passenger/Clase Ejecutiva|Pasajero Distinguido". Wow, did I feel great when I saw that on my bag. Unfortunately, it didn't mean my bag came down among the first ones at CUN...

It appears to be an industry wide problem. My bags have never come out early on a UA carousel even if they had a Star Priorty tag. I though UA bag handlers may have simply not cared about Star tags.

But even on a UA flight from YVR to LAX where my bags where tagged with a UA First Class tag, they still came out close to last. (And given that we waited 25 minutes for the first bag to come out, it was quite a wait.)

Priority bagagge handling is a good indicator if all is well with the labour relations at a particular airport. Unfortunately it rely's upon every airport along your itinerary to be working well in order to get the P bags out first.

At the acceptance point the system needs that station to segregate the luggage properly and notify the downline station exactly where it has been loaded [in the doorway or first container]. At the retrieval station you need the dedication of the ramp crew to dispatch that load of P bags from the aircraft immeadiately without waitinf for any other bags. The connecting station must do both parts properly.

As soon as the employees start to become disenchanted with either local management or the guy at the top ofthe airline, this process is lost. My experience allows me to watch the baggage retrieval and determine how labour relations are going.

In some cases the system breaks down because of resource limitations, such as not enough manpower to retrieve the P bags seperately or as in YYZ the baggage make-up space is limited and dedicating a seperate container for P becomes difficult.

It is impossible to miss the star Priority tag as the baggage tag must be read by the individual in order to sort the luggage and the P tag is stuck right in with the destination code.

If your priority bag is mishandled generally look way up the food chain to the top of the airline to find the problem. It is one of the first things to go when trouble is brewing.

Good post exAc. I always wondered if staff sometimes held back the P luggage to voice a message about labour relations.

My experience with AC so far have been pretty good. In HKG, my bags are always out by the time I clear customs {~10 mins after the plane arrives}. In YYZ, my bags come out in the first batch when they do arrive (sometimes 30 mins after the plane arrives..).

Generally, the only airport where I routinely experienced this problem was LGA.

Occasionally coming off D9S flights bags would be intermingled (baggage isn't in containers on the 9).

I would say that in excess of 95% of the time when I check bags, mine is among the first dozen or so down the belt.

Of course, it's the other 5% of the time that sticks in one's mind...

I waited for one hour and 45 minutes for a priority tagged bag to come onto the carousel in CDG last spring (coming off a CP/BA flight). I definitely agree that the labour relations idea, as a strike was going on and all of the priority bags were the last ones to emerge. Ouch!

I would say that the effectiveness of the priority tags depends a bit on the type of aircraft you are flying.

If you are on a widebody, then your bags would be stored in containers. The priority tagged bags would probably be put in a seperate container and offloaded first (uploaded last). (Which may explain why it is more effective on international flights)

While on domestic flights, you will more likely be on a narrow bodied aircraft which dosen't use baggage containers, but instead they just "throw" your bags into the airplane and they get mixed around.

Not true, when I worked as a Station Attendant for AC, we put the Priority luggage "loose" in the rearward hold on wide bodies . It was not containerized. Generally, an effort was made to get the priority bags out first , but usually it was just one or two guys working on those. On a 767 that can take 10+ minutes. Sometimes, the cans happened to finish first ( atleast one or two) and they were sent in. It would be silly to hold everyone else's luggage until the ELITE members got theirs. Other times, minimal effort was made. However, whenever we sent bags out, they were always had special loading. It really is up to the station attendants on the receiving end.