HKG_Flyer1

Had a mildly irritating experience last night on BA183 upon arrival at JFK. Was flying F class, with my bag tagged priority at check-in. Upon arrival, luggage was slow to be unloaded from the 747, eventually coming off in dribs and drabs. My sorry luck was to be the absolute last bag out... well over an hour after landing.

When I went to pull the bag off the luggage belt, I was approached by BA ground staff, who apologized for my priority bag coming off so late-- she mentioned some sort of unspecified problems with the baggage handlers.

I graciously accepted her apology and brushed it off as just one of those things. As soon as she left, however, I noticed that my tag appeared to have been intentionally ripped off (rather than accidentally snagged by equipment, or something). It looked like someone had attempted to tear it off as cleanly as possible to appear as though it had never been tagged at all.

1) Would a baggage handler have really done that? If so, why?

2) How did the BA ground staff know I had been traveling in a premium class and entitled to priority baggage handling (since there was no evidence of that on my bag)?

Can I help you

Sorry, you are asking a impossible question to answer.

navylad

Sorry ot hear of the delay in your baggage; I'm afraid I don't think anyone on here is going to be able ot answer your question; but it would seam rather unusual if this was the case (I'm trying to think why a baggage handler would do that).

As for how BA knew you were travelling in a premium cabin, don't forget there is also a barcode sticker back-up to the luggage tag attached to your suitcase.

Have a great time in NYC.

Jimmie76

The priority tag (unless you mean the barcoded tag) doesn't do anything to the bag as far as I know. The class of your trip is included in the barcode and it doesn't matter if you have a priority tag or not. My tag a few years ago was missing when we reached LHR and I suspect that it was caught in the baggage belt at BOS.

Be grateful your bag arrived on the same flight as you, mine didn't.

mapleg

Are you sure about that? I think the tag does mean something. Last trip Mrs Mapleg and I both had priority baggage (not on BA I admit) and her tag presumably fell off. My bag in the first few arriving at the carousel. Hers without the tag--a few hundred bags later.

dodgeflyer

At LHR and certain other airports, the luggage 'value' is ingrained in the bar code. Thus, in theory, from LHR to JFK, your luggage should be loaded in the right container and offloaded accordingly.

To say someone has ripped off your priority tag intentionally seems borderline paranoid.

Jimmie76

As far as I know that's the case at LHR T5 as it's mostly automated, but it depends on the airport.

See
And

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...s-baggage.html

Often1

The priority tag is solely to make the passenger feel important and has nothing to do with how the bag is handled on a 747 on that route. The tags ought to have been abandoned a long time ago, but people would whinge that BA had become an LCC or some such.

On a 747, bags are containerized at LHR. Thus, all that matters is that the bag's bar code indicates that it was destined for a priority container. On arrival at JFK, the priority container(s) is-are offloaded and sent to the carousel first. This is not the old days of someone rooting around in the hold and pushing bags down a slide.

What happened to OP's bag and to its tag? Nobody here could even hazard a guess beyond saying that clearly it got sidetracked somewhere.

Not only is it a tad paranoid to think that some bag handler ripped the tag off, but even if that bag handler had it in for the OP, ripping the tag off serves no purpose.

1HourPhoto

Flew Club Europe ex LHR a few days ago, priority tag attached when I checked my bag in.

Waiting at the baggage carousel at my destination an endless stream of priority bags came out first, bright orange tags clearly visible.

Then the non priority bags started to arrive, at a rough guess my bag arrived in the last 1/4 of bags and when it did I noticed the priority tag had been ripped off. I suspect it happened while travelling through the baggage system at T5 and not because of a baggage handler ripping it off on purpose.

Did make me wonder if the priority tags do actually mean something but isn't T5 baggage all automated. Anyway it's not something thats going to get me all worked up about.

LTN Phobia

In my (fairly extensive) experience with BA checked baggage, priority tags do not generally work (with the exception of certain airports).

Priority tags tend to get ripped off because it's made of fairly flimsy paper on effectively any airline - I think I've had them missing on practically all airlines I have flown with from time to time. If you think about it, baggage handling systems (machinery/human) are something that occasionally inflict damage on suitcases which tend to be substantially stronger than paper tags, so the loss of priority tags is to be expected and entirely normal occurrence.

HKG_Flyer1

It was ripped off in a straight line, directly adjacent to the misaligned bag tag in an area partially shielded by the bag tag... hard to see how that would have been caused by an accidental snagging.

Again, it's not really that big a deal. I just posted because I thought it was interesting, and have had years of experience witnessing/reading about all sorts of random craziness from JFK baggage handlers (working for a wide variety of airlines & 3rd party contractors).

Baggage delivery was clearly being monitored by BA ground staff... which explains why a BA staffer came up to apologize when my bag came up last.

My suspicion is that a baggage handler saw my bag, tagged as first class, was going to be one of the last one's on the belt and ripped it off in an effort to avoid an issue with the BA staff who were monitoring the baggage delivery process.

Swampz64

If that was the case the cause would have been the bag being loaded into the wrong container at LHR, not something a JFK baggage handler could do anything about.

MeanwhileBackAtFAI

Why is easy to answer; to stick it to the people flying in F while the guy makes minimum wage schlepping your 72kg bag allowance around.

Contrary to popular belief among the elite they are not universally liked/admired.

jamesreid978

Pretty sure the tags mean nothing. I flew ABZ-LHR-DXB in march in F. When we dropped our bags at ABZ, there was no priority tag put on them, however when we arrived at DXB, the cases were already waiting for us close to the carousel with the rest of the tagged F cases. No queue at immigration or anything, I was actually really impressed.

stifle

The only purpose of a priority bag tag is to stop overentitled passengers who think they should get a priority bag tag asking for a priority bag tag.