Waiting for luggage an hour or more "perfectly normal"
Apr 5, 2015, 7:12 am
#31
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Hong Kong, France
Programs: FB , BA Gold
Posts: 15,556
San Gottardo's comment regarding technical aspects are indeed relevant. Most big airports are now equipped with electronic sorting, so that priority luggage are brought by the belt next to the priority containers (and different ones for transit at destination) which are supposed to be unloaded first from the plane and therefore delivered first. But there is still manual intervention to load the bags on the container and load/unload the containers in proper order.
With an efficient system like at HKG, the F-labelled bags (OWE and F pax) are often waiting for me at the carousel whatever the OW airline, eventhough I walk fast and go through e-gates for immigration; usually ten minutes after leaving the ac. J bags come next. This is also usually the case for BA and to be fair for AF (say 80% of the times I flew AF).
I do not know if the systems at CDG 1 and 2 are outdated or humans are not working well, but that delivery of priority bags is more random and we often have to wait a very long time for early morning arrivals. I do not know if this is caused by overloaded systems or the insufficient number of humans at this peak period.
One anecdote: I flew TG quite frequently a few years ago and F bags seemed to always come last. I has a discussion with some TG guy in Paris and he said that handlers were requesting a hefty "bonus" from TG to follow their procedure and to treat TG plane in priority over other airlines arriving at the same time, as CDG1 was overwhelmed with flights arriving early morning from Asia and America. I wonder whether these practices have disappeared (that was 5 years ago).
With an efficient system like at HKG, the F-labelled bags (OWE and F pax) are often waiting for me at the carousel whatever the OW airline, eventhough I walk fast and go through e-gates for immigration; usually ten minutes after leaving the ac. J bags come next. This is also usually the case for BA and to be fair for AF (say 80% of the times I flew AF).
I do not know if the systems at CDG 1 and 2 are outdated or humans are not working well, but that delivery of priority bags is more random and we often have to wait a very long time for early morning arrivals. I do not know if this is caused by overloaded systems or the insufficient number of humans at this peak period.
One anecdote: I flew TG quite frequently a few years ago and F bags seemed to always come last. I has a discussion with some TG guy in Paris and he said that handlers were requesting a hefty "bonus" from TG to follow their procedure and to treat TG plane in priority over other airlines arriving at the same time, as CDG1 was overwhelmed with flights arriving early morning from Asia and America. I wonder whether these practices have disappeared (that was 5 years ago).
Apr 5, 2015, 8:28 am
#32
Join Date: May 2011
Location: OSL / PAR / BIA
Programs: FB Platinum
Posts: 307
Frankly, they have made a lot of progress on this and especially at CDG, but there is still room for improvement, especially in some outstations.
What they still need to improve dramatically at CDG is the timing of delivery of the bags from the arrival of the plane at the gate. In most cases, you have unacceptable times displayed on the screen like 30min or more at 2F to deliver the 1st bag (it's written on the screens : "delivery expected at hh:mm").
Well...it depends. I was in OSL last december and my bag took forever to arrive (in the last batch)
And for A380 at CDG, sometimes you have very good surprises. Last week end, arriving in a packed-to-death A380 at M concourse (so very far from baggage claim), the bags started to be delivered 20 min after arrival, priority first. I had 2 bags to claim, including one oversized (delivered on a separate belt) and I was in my taxi 30 min after arrival ^ . So when they want...
What they still need to improve dramatically at CDG is the timing of delivery of the bags from the arrival of the plane at the gate. In most cases, you have unacceptable times displayed on the screen like 30min or more at 2F to deliver the 1st bag (it's written on the screens : "delivery expected at hh:mm").
Well...it depends. I was in OSL last december and my bag took forever to arrive (in the last batch)
And for A380 at CDG, sometimes you have very good surprises. Last week end, arriving in a packed-to-death A380 at M concourse (so very far from baggage claim), the bags started to be delivered 20 min after arrival, priority first. I had 2 bags to claim, including one oversized (delivered on a separate belt) and I was in my taxi 30 min after arrival ^ . So when they want...
But it's clear that if they want to they can do some good work...
Apr 6, 2015, 5:23 am
#33
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Paris, France
Programs: AF/KL Flying Blue Platinum for life/Club2000 Ultimate, Accor ALL Diamond
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