Was on AC116 YVR-YYZ today. Luggage came out about 1 hour 10 minutes after gate arrival. No surprise there. What was surprising was that our luggage (3 pieces) was tagged priority in YVR (am *G) and I watched it go down the belt with the tags, but all three tags were removed (you could see where the baggage tags had been pulled open by pulling them out) and our bags didn't come out with the priority bags (which did arrive in about 20 minutes, which was good).

I am confused how this could happen. I thought maybe there was quality control somewhere in the process and when the unloading crew realized they had missed a bunch of priority tagged bags they pulled them off so it wouldn't affect something they're being measured on. But then I remembered this was AC and laughed and laughed.

Why on earth would someone remove priority tags like that. I've had lots of times that priority bags just didn't work at all, especially in YYZ, so I'm just pleasantly surprised when they do. But to remove them was a bit shady, I thought.

Thought others might like to comment if it's happened to them recently or something.

You mean the orange tags?

IIRC, bags loaded at YVR have "priority" status baked into the barcode, so a torn off tag shouldn't affect priority, and I'd imagine YYZ bag scanners are capable of reading them. Maybe your problem lies with the human baggage handlers (if there are any at the final step before the baggage carousel, which I doubt) who said "oh hey this doesn't have an orange tag, let's make them wait!"

My only real example of this was flying YYZ-MCO with a friend. I had two bags, he had one. I figured we'd just check them all under my name since he had no baggage allowance. The concierge checking us in did not charge for any bags, so I figured she had done that.

Nope, she had checked his under his name, waived the fee, and stuck a priority tag on it.

But he wasn't eligible for priority.

Somewhere along the way, his orange tag was cut off. My bags came out first, his came out last.

Was everyone in your party *G? If not, is it possible the bags were checked under someone else's name?

They will cut off the orange tags if you're not actually priority.

This is kind of in my wheelhouse so I�ll take a crack at it. Poster #2 is correct in that the bag�s sort status is related to the pax record, not any accoutrements on the physical tag. A priority bag will get a reject message on the handheld scanners used by the sort room staff if an attempt is made to scan it into a non-priority container and vice-versa no matter how many fancy flags are on the tag.

The end result is that any given containerized flight should have pure containers for priority bags, regular bags, connecting bags, etc.

The $64,000 question is whether these policies are adhered to, and that varies widely. For a priority container to get the true priority treatment, it has to be assembled, loaded, unloaded and dispensed in accordance with policy. If any handling crew fails to follow policy, you�ve going to have a product failure.

For example, at a major hub like YYZ, the offloading ramp function and the dispense function are handled by separate work groups where the former hands off to the latter. If the offload crew has two strings of arriving baggage containers (a single ramp vehicle can pull a maximum of six container dollies and a heavy widebody flight can easily carry 20 baggage containers) and for any reason the priority container is in the trailing string, the dispense crew is not going to hold off delivering string 1 to wait on string 2. There�s just not enough slack in the work schedule to rearrange the strings. Thus, that priority container will not be dispensed first, despite being assembled and loaded in accordance with policy.

For non-containerized flights, all bets are off. Those flights are loaded by hand and the priority bags are supposed to loaded last so they are in the cargo hold doorway and first off. I�ll be the first person to admit if a crew is loading a flight and a priority bag comes up the conveyor to the belly in the midst of a load, it�s very difficult to put that bag aside somewhere to preserve its status and it�s also very difficult to stop or reverse the load process without sacrificing precious time.

Like I said, if at any point in the handling chain the bag fails to be sorted correctly, the whole priority handling process breaks down and is hard to recover.

I'm not actually sure how they were checked to be honest . I handed them over at the counter directly to the agent and didn't look at the tags to see if they were my name. There were 3 bags for the 5 of us on the way back from Australia (I was transferring on separate tickets and had left a day in Vancouver to recover), but I'm sure there would be at least one under my name, and none retained the priority tag. This was a 777 so containerized luggage.

Perhaps the issue is she didn't attach them to me for some reason? In which case if everyone isn't entitled to priority in my party (fine, rules are rules, though that's kinda cheap) then don't tag them that way, but at least mine should have been. So the issue here is probably a poorly trained check in agent if this is what actually happened. I'm *G through United and only 25K with AC so maybe 25K bags don't get priority and they were tagged that way?

25k do not get priority so that could be it. Star Gold obviously do get priority.

Yeah, if your 25K status was on the PNR, then you were not eligible for priority, and I could easily see a baggage handler along the way removing the orange tags from non-priority bags.

I'm sure there's somewhere sometime when this happens but it seems like the people doing this are under so much time pressure it seems unlikely they routinely would take the time to take out a pair of scissors or knife and start cutting things just so that... why? So that they can teach you a lesson about having the wrong labels put on your bag?

As has been mentioned, the orange tags don't do much anywhere any more. It's all coded in the barcode.

But I've personally experienced orange tags being cut off, so it can happen, and given what we've been told about this case, it would be my guess.

I just had a fascinating and positive experience with priority baggage.

I was flying Montreal to Vancouver, with a connection in Toronto. I checked a bag in Montreal, through to Vancouver

I was in J, so was one of the first few off the aircraft. When I arrived at the carousel, it was turning slowly with a handful bags on it bunched together.

One of them was mine! The tag was marked �Expedited Baggage�.

They had put it on a direct YUL-YVR flight and it had arrived 45 minutes before me via AC 307.

Plus, they had moved it to the correct baggage carousel too.

I believe it was an automated process because the tag still had the �Priority� flag on it that was attached in Montreal. Correction - the �expedited� sticker was applied to the baggage tag after it left check-in.

Anyway, I was delighted as I really didn�t want to wait around. The process was as quick as if I had carried it on.

AC846 on Saturday. The fight was delayed an extra 20+ minutes to wait for a container of Priority Bags. That was nice of them.

Ron.

An expedite overlay, or �rush tag� in industry parlance, is used when the bag has become decoupled from the passenger�s actual flight itinerary, allowing the airline to �rush� the bag to it�s final destination without the need for route matching or reconciliation on the first available flight or set of flights (FIRAV).

It is manually applied by a member of staff and creates a corresponding �Forwarding Message� in WorldTracer so the passenger should (theoretically) be paged at baggage claim and advised of the (usually) bad news posthaste.

In your case, the bag missed the YUL-YYZ for some reason and YULAC rushed it to YVR FIRAV� as luck would have it, the nonstop flight beat your connecting itinerary. A bit of good luck there to be sure and a nice recovery by YULAC.

I've experienced that at DUB where LH didn't put my bag on the plane (they said there wasn't time though I had enough time for a quick shower in the lounge!) I was being paged before the first bag came out. It would be nice if AC learned that trick. Standing waiting at the carousel wondering when to give up and go to the bag desk and stand in line really sucks. It would also be nice if AC/YUL learned the trick of showing on the screen when the bags have all been delivered so you don't keep standing there like an idiot wondering whether any more bags are coming.

In YYZ it has a baggage offloading in progress or something on the screen these days ,so you know when delivery is complete.

Did very, very well with a recent trip to Vancouver. We had 8 bags (AC 50 X 2 and a daughter on an aeroplan latitude ticket- moving daughter). Apparently no bag overweight (?surprised as we weighed them at home) and all arrived quickly in Vancouver.
Trip home with nested bags equally good.