And the Top Award for Stupidity Goes To...
Mar 22, 2019, 7:34 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: New York, Paris
Programs: AA ExPlat 4MM, AA Life Plat, Lufthansa FT, Delta Basic
Posts: 1,593
And the Top Award for Stupidity Goes To...
CDG 2A, I check in at the BA Business Class counter with two bags, having a short connection in LHR to American (T5 to T3), 110 minutes in the best of cases, fully knowing that my BA flight has Expertflyer statistics of being late 74% of the time.
I notice that the agent affixes to each of my 2 bags a "LONG Transit Connection at LHR" tag and I ask her to exchange them for "SHORT Transit".
"Oh, we are out of them" is the reply. "We haven't had them for weeks".
I then tell her that the "LONG" tag will be counterproductive, to which she replies that no tag at all will mean my bags won't be transfered at all.
WHAT IS WRONG with this airline? How difficult is it to re-supply a tag and why does it take weeks? Such incompetence is frightening.
I notice that the agent affixes to each of my 2 bags a "LONG Transit Connection at LHR" tag and I ask her to exchange them for "SHORT Transit".
"Oh, we are out of them" is the reply. "We haven't had them for weeks".
I then tell her that the "LONG" tag will be counterproductive, to which she replies that no tag at all will mean my bags won't be transfered at all.
WHAT IS WRONG with this airline? How difficult is it to re-supply a tag and why does it take weeks? Such incompetence is frightening.
Mar 22, 2019, 8:51 am
#5
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 2,832
It is "frightening" that the OP had to spend the duration of the flight worrying whether the mislabeled bags made the connection.
Mar 22, 2019, 8:53 am
#6
Ambassador, British Airways; FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Leeds, UK
Programs: BA GGL/CCR, GfL, HH Diamond
Posts: 42,945
I didn't think the "Long" and "Short" labels made any difference. The bags are all sorted and managed automatically on the basis of what's in the bar code.
Mar 22, 2019, 1:58 pm
#8
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Up North.
Programs: BAEC Silver
Posts: 311
I'm guessing, or we'd have heard about it.
The tags make no difference, Lord knows why they still have them... Much like the priority tags, although at least they make people feel important.
As the bags get taken out the bins, if there's a connecting sector on the tag they get fed straight into the system and sent to the relevant flight's bin... This is based on a computer reading the code. The purple tag has nothing to do with it.
The tags make no difference, Lord knows why they still have them... Much like the priority tags, although at least they make people feel important.
As the bags get taken out the bins, if there's a connecting sector on the tag they get fed straight into the system and sent to the relevant flight's bin... This is based on a computer reading the code. The purple tag has nothing to do with it.
Mar 22, 2019, 8:48 pm
#13
Moderator: British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Jan 2009
Programs: Battleaxe Alliance
Posts: 22,127
I still fail to understand why BA simply don't scrap priority tags and connection tags. They're just supposedly to make passengers feel better but actually, they are making them feel worse.
Mar 22, 2019, 9:14 pm
#14
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Argentina
Posts: 40,209
I thought they'd scrapped them years ago. Unless they're just using up old stock whenever a nervous passenger asks for one.
Mar 22, 2019, 10:01 pm
#15
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: New York, Paris
Programs: AA ExPlat 4MM, AA Life Plat, Lufthansa FT, Delta Basic
Posts: 1,593
Actually both.. As things went, the BA flight was among the 26% arriving on time and at a gate (not a remote stand). I made it to T3 AA by entering the UK and taking the Heathrow Express to T3 (far quicker than going through "Connections").. AA had them listed in the system but not received, the agent made phone calls at which point they were located and delivered to AA at at T minus... something.. The AA gate agent to whom I had spoken paged me with the info, whichI found excellent service. So it all ended well.
Not restocking transit labels for weeks has no excuse. It is not rocket science.