Tiger_lily

When BA lost one of our bags it said tracing continues even though I’d had a text from a courier telling me that it was on a van back to us.

ExAbz

Just a general note on baggage tracking, the actual tracking of bags by ground handlers into airport systems (if any) and then onto airlines varies a great deal.

IATA resolution 753 is due to come into force on 1st June 2018, which mandates tracking of bags at 4 key points:

1. Passenger handover to airline
2. Loading on aircraft
3. Deliver to transfer area
4. Return to passenger

and additional optional tracking points where practical.

Hopefully the resolution will improve bag tracking, however I know of at least one airport that won't have this in place by the due date.

710 77345

Are you sure? I've always found BA can tell you an awful lot more when you get a human in the baggage area to look at their computer, vs what world tracer will show you. BA even know if a bag has been delivered to a carousel, and can see every time it has been scanned.

None of this helps Jacksong much, it's best just to wait it out and spend the cash on whatever you need in the meantime. BA aren't particularly tight in this area.

KeaneJohn

I’ve had mishandled bags twice in the last 3years. Once on a connecting RFS NCL-LHR-ABZ got an email (text would have been better) saying bag hadn’t made flight would be on the next one which was delayed. BA agent said would be too late to get it out to me that night so would follow in a couple of days, Only in Aberdeen overnight so went back in taxi to airport to collect.

The other time was on. LHR-JFK-CUN journey. Bags arrived in JFK cleared customs and dropped off at recheck centre in T7. Maybe should have taken them over to T8 but who knows. Inbound flight 1hr delayed and now connection is 65 mins not 2hr 5 mins. Met at gate with Orange fast connection wallet and rushed through was last to board aircraft asked if bags had made it, told they had so happy. Then aircraft had a bird strike so change of aircraft and 3 hr delay ensued no bags in CUN. Report filled in, taxi to hotel told bags would follow the following day, Given a number to call and authorise all replacement purchases however I’d taken a small carry on with necessities for the first coup,e of days so sorted.

Came back to room after breakfast and found bag placed on bed having been delivered.

Im not sure if people remember from the last BA open day but they had digital baggage tags that would sync with your MMB and generate a new bag tag bar code with tracking but gone all quiet. Sorry to digr3ss but hope the OP gets their bag back ASAP.

LTN Phobia

IME, only at LHR.

Often1

This is years behind what already exists on most OW carriers, including BA.

The problem is not BA's ability to know when a bag is on a given aircraft, rather it is BA's ability to know where a bag is when it is not loaded.

The IATA resolution is just one more silly effort by IATA to bring some carriers along, but it would not have helped OP.

When BA loads a bag, it knows that the bag is onboard. Thus, if the passenger no shows, it has a mismatch and knows that it must offload the bag. But, the reverse is not true. If you check a bag and board, there is no alarm sounding to alert BA that it is missing your bag.

Peregrine415

Happened to me last month. Very frustrating. Flew from Chicago to Helsinki via LHR. I was blaming London airport; turns out bag was not even loaded in ORD. Took 8 days for them to find it and contact me. I stupidly packed my regular medications in the suitcase, so I was without my medications for several days. Ended up buying basics in Helsinki and then more items when I arrived in Tokyo. Luckily I was staying in service apartments and had washer/dryer in my apartment. To top it all, I developed norovirus after I arrived in Finland.

Jacksong

So I kinda ignored advice and kept trying to hunt down a human to speak and eventually go ahold of the actual BA station at SJC when they came on shift. After a bit of back and forth I got them to start providing some information and it transpired that they had, in fact created a world tracer record when I filled out the form at the airport but rather critically they had set the records last name to my first name, mis-transcribed my email address (put gs where there were Ds and Qs - memo to self, use block caps in future, not lowercase!) and set my UK cellphone number as a US number, this meant that every attempt to contact me failed and I was seeing no updates and no-one was referencing the second record I had created myself online after I had been unable to contact anyone to find out why I did not have a tracking number. Had I not got ahold of them to chase and gone to the airport to collect then I most likely would have not seen the bag again until I was back home at some point in the future as neither them nor the delivery company would have been able to contact me to deliver it and they would have not seen the change in address on the tracer record as they were looking at a different record to the one I was updating so I guess it would have been sent back, ultimately, to the address on the piece of paper inside of it.

Ultimately it's a case of garbage in equals garbage out - bad information into the computer system meant i had no chance of getting good information out of it!

simons1

Indeed, not helped by not having a file reference when it was reported.

LTN Phobia

If it ever happens to you again, make sure you get the WorldTracer reference from them so that you can check and update the information right away.

Tiger_lily

corporate-wage-slave

And was your BAEC number on the original WT report?

Tiger_lily

When they didn’t load our bags on our LHR-OSL flight I made sure that I didn’t leave the desk without a full copy of the report including the reference number. I was updating WT with the correct info as soon as we hit the Park Inn

Jacksong

@Tiger_lily I'm picking it up from the airport today rather than let the courier handle it. The form and procedure at SJC left a lot to be desired in terms of filling out a rather poor form and it having to go off to the office to be input into the computer hours later. But whilst I'd like to think it was done better at larger stations I suspect most outstations have similar poor forms. Should this happen again I think it may be easier to directly raise a case on my smartphone and then give the rep at the airport the reference number as at least then I know the detail is correct.
@corporate_wage_slave yes my baec number was on the paper report I filled out but no it didn't make it into the world tracer report. I would have thought, being a systems person, that it would have also auto linked such information from the luggage receipt which should be liked to my PNR which is in turn linked to my BAEC details but I suspect that is asking for far too much integration!

Thanks all for the varying opinions, information, education and advice.

corporate-wage-slave

Thanks for all the updates Jacksong - we don't always find out what happens. So many things went wrong here that it's almost a case study for the Swiss Cheese Model.