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Checking Someone Else's Bag - What Will Happen At Check In?

Checking Someone Else's Bag - What Will Happen At Check In?

Old Mar 31, 2010, 4:20 pm
  #16  
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
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Originally Posted by bealine
Hmmm......

I am not going to be sanctimonious because, although it is strictly against the conditions of carriage for any airline, I know people will do this all the time and no amount of waving the rule book is going to stamp it out.
Glad to hear common sense can prevail. If the security of the flight depends on passengers answering honestly the question whether they packed their own bags then we might as well give up now. The checks should be the same regardless of the answer anyone gives to those check-in questions.
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Old Mar 31, 2010, 11:55 pm
  #17  
 
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Do you absolutely trust your friend? if yes...then knock yourself out but check inside before you go.....you do not want the rubber glove treatment from customs at your destination.

Weapons and dangerous goods will be scanned but not drugs so that is your responsibility. Dont forget, a lot of countries have the death penalty for drug smuggling.

not that i am trying to put you off but be aware and enjoy your flight!
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Old Apr 1, 2010, 1:30 am
  #18  
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Originally Posted by d3vski
Do you absolutely trust your friend? if yes...then knock yourself out but check inside before you go.....you do not want the rubber glove treatment from customs at your destination.

Weapons and dangerous goods will be scanned but not drugs so that is your responsibility. Dont forget, a lot of countries have the death penalty for drug smuggling.

not that i am trying to put you off but be aware and enjoy your flight!
Interesting that this is the first post in reply to consider what could happen at the 'arrival' end of the trip. I bet when Midnight Express was released, arrivals customs was definitely uppermost in our minds. Now the focus has shifted to other threats.

Bealine's comments are (as always) interesting. I am a bit surprised that there is not a Standard Operating Procedure for such an eventuality; it sounds a bit like the agent has some discretion.

I would never do it for anyone, except my immediate family (spouse, 2 kids in school).
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Old Apr 1, 2010, 1:53 am
  #19  
 
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The rules changed after Lockerbie for a reason.

Under no circumstances should you be carrying anybody else's bags.
Very easy to say and very easy to print in the "Conditions of Carriage". Try stopping someone taking "the bag that Great Aunt Maud left behind last time she was here" back with them, or students at university with heavy bags travelling with another student on the same flight who has no bags! No matter what you put in the "book of words", people carrying stuff for other people is going to happen.

In fact, the security questions used to ask "Does the bag and its contents belong to you?" Now, we simply ask "Could the bag have been interfered with since it was packed?"..................a question that many a Johnny Foreigner has difficulty understanding! The idea is not to get an honest answer to the questions, but to focus the travellers' minds on security and to make them pause and think for a moment. Hopefully, the person who has been duped would then raise a question enabling us to give his/her bags an additional screening. We're not there to "catch anybody out" or "throw the rule book at them" - we're there to keep our aeroplanes and our customers safe and secure.

Now, if we were pedantic about whether a bag and its contents belong to its owner, nearly every business traveller would be stopped from flying because many items they carry will actually belong gto their employer, and not to them! The innocent pocket calculator, a laptop computer or a business gift such as a travel shaver or alarm clock could all be "Improvised Explosive Devices". Events such as Lockerbie or 09/11 can make one a bit paranoid over security issues, but at the end of the day, you have to trust your customers to a large extent. (.......and where would we be if one couldn't trust one's employer?)

I am a bit surprised that there is not a Standard Operating Procedure for such an eventuality; it sounds a bit like the agent has some discretion.
The security questions are designed more to make the passenger stop and think and yes, there is a Standard Operating Procedure if someone tells you they are carrying for someone else or they left their bags in a hotel reception lobby - a private screening of the bags by trained security staff with the passenger present!

Last edited by bealine; Apr 1, 2010 at 2:04 am
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Old Apr 1, 2010, 2:06 am
  #20  
 
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I have taken chocolates etc for friends but I simply wouldn't take whole bags through, lifelong friends or not. However tiny the chance that bag contains something that's going to get me into trouble, the chance isn't going to be taken. My friends would understand this, if they didn't then they are not real friends.
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Old Apr 1, 2010, 2:53 am
  #21  
 
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You don't have to volunteer that it is not yours - when you are asked if anyone else has packed the bag or if it has been left unattended at any time, just say YES. It will get seperate screening.
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Old Apr 1, 2010, 3:22 am
  #22  
 
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Originally Posted by dmahon
You don't have to volunteer that it is not yours - when you are asked if anyone else has packed the bag or if it has been left unattended at any time, just say YES. It will get seperate screening.
I don't want to disagree with you, but for quite a few years now, we no longer have to ask if the bag is yours, so you may need to volunteer the information.

The only mandatory questions the DFT require are:

Check in staff are required to ask two Security Questions:

Q1) “Could anyone have interfered with your bags since you packed them?”

Q2) “Have you been given anything to take on the flight?”

These questions are not aimed at revealing possible terrorists travelling with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), but are designed to prevent a passenger being ‘duped’ from carrying an explosive device onto our aircraft. Anyone of us could be asked to carry a parcel, gift, etc unknowingly.
According to a DFT Inspector, it is not necessary to ask these questions if the passenger has already seen them and answered (correctly) at the Self Service Kiosk. However, there is certainly no harm in being asked a second, third or even fourth time!

Q2 is ambiguous - most people assume that "have you been given anything to take on the flight?" means "have you been given anything to take into the cabin?" and they don't really think about their baggage!
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Old Apr 1, 2010, 3:38 am
  #23  
 
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However much you trust the person, always treat anything you're given as suspicious and check it yourself.

I seem to recall a case may years back, when a girl was given a package by her boyfriend to take to his mother.

The girl was pregnant at the time with her boyfriends child and the package cotained a bomb.

The girl was stopped by ELAL security and the bomb found.

bjorns
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Old Apr 1, 2010, 3:47 am
  #24  
 
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To add a little bit to bealine's excellent responses so far.

It is absolutely permitted for a passenger to carry items belonging to someone else. HOWEVER, it is a requirement under NASP that items that are identified (via the mandatory security questions or other means) as belonging to "a person other than who placed that baggage in the custody of the operator" (aka "unaccompanied baggage") and subjected to a higher level of screening (Level 3 screening).

Level 3 screening requires that the bag be screened via either hand search, via conventional X-ray at different orientations or via an EDS certified scanner with multi-orientational imaging.

Failure to answer the mandatory security questions accurately however may be a criminal offence and can lead to offloading of baggage (mandatory) denial of travel (somewhat common) and possibly prosecution (very rare).
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Old Apr 1, 2010, 4:43 am
  #25  
 
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[QUOTE=bealine;13689487Q2 is ambiguous - most people assume that "have you been given anything to take on the flight?" means "have you been given anything to take into the cabin?" and they don't really think about their baggage![/QUOTE]

I don't have any confusion with Q2. I've always assumed it to refer to all my baggage.

I find Q1 more challenging. If my bag is left in a hotel's left baggage facility, does that count? What if it's sitting by my desk at work and I'm away from my desk for half an hour? What if I proceeded straight from hotel check-out to a waiting car, but the bell-boy took my suitcases ahead of me and they were out of my sight for two minutes?

Originally Posted by B747-437B
Level 3 screening requires that the bag be screened via either hand search, via conventional X-ray at different orientations or via an EDS certified scanner with multi-orientational imaging.
Is the the screening process for dodgy-looking people at TLV (around 20% of pax, I'd say) Level 6 or Level 10? It takes over one man-hour and the people doing it (two or three in parallel) are very intense and professional.
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Old Apr 1, 2010, 6:00 am
  #26  
 
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Originally Posted by dmahon
You don't have to volunteer that it is not yours - when you are asked if anyone else has packed the bag or if it has been left unattended at any time, just say YES. It will get seperate screening.
But this is my point. I have proactively volunteered the information up front every time - my understanding was that if this breaks the rules of the airline / CAA or local legislation then I would be politely told that the bag could not be carried. I have to say in retrospect that if the bag were later found to contain drugs or other banned substance then I could be in real trouble and I will maybe not do this again!!
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Old Apr 1, 2010, 6:11 am
  #27  
 
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Originally Posted by LeisureFirst
I find Q1 more challenging. If my bag is left in a hotel's left baggage facility, does that count? What if it's sitting by my desk at work and I'm away from my desk for half an hour? What if I proceeded straight from hotel check-out to a waiting car, but the bell-boy took my suitcases ahead of me and they were out of my sight for two minutes?
If the bags have been out of your sight and someone could have the opportunity to place anything into your bags then you should be concerned. That is why when crew leave their hotel rooms they are not allowed a hotel porter to carry their bags to the hotel lobby and why they are watched at all times, even as they are loaded into the crew transport.
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Old Apr 1, 2010, 6:21 am
  #28  
 
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I once borrowed a bag from a friend for a trip to the US. When asked by the additional security at MAN before getting to check in, I answered truthfully that it wasn't my bag and got a bit of the 3rd degree.

However, when I explained that the person I'd borrowed it from was a senior officer in the anti-terrorism branch of Greater Manchester Police, and could provide contact details etc., he calmed down.

The bag would still have been x-rayed, as all hold luggage is nowadays.
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Old Feb 5, 2016, 4:56 am
  #29  
 
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Hi Everybody,

I have read all of yours posts and i want to ask for a different situation.

I will fly from London to Newyork with my friend soon, he is not my best friend but i know him, He told me that he is going to have 2 bags and asked me to check his extra baggage for not paying excess baggage fee. (I will not have any checked baggage). He also told me that he is going to let me check and repack his bag. We will going to check in together and if a question “Have you been given anything to take on the flight?” arise and i honestly answer "yes, the whole baggage belongs to my friend who is next to me" would there be any problem? Does the airline refuse to carry baggage or us ? I would be appreciated if you share your deep experience with me. Thank you

Last edited by fyolacan; Feb 5, 2016 at 5:23 am
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Old Feb 5, 2016, 5:51 am
  #30  
 
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I got stopped at AMS once and asked if all the items were mine. Not thinking I said no, it was a company laptop I was carrying.

I was then asked and I quote "how do you know there is not a bomb in it".

With that level of intelligence to stop the terrorist...
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