How does interlining bags actually work?
Mar 26, 2019, 8:16 am
#17
Ambassador, British Airways; FlyerTalk Posting Legend
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I have a premium economy BA flight with my friend going YYZ-LHR. These are 2 different PNRs because of where we flew from (and when) to get to YYZ. We decided to catch a BA flight LHR-CDG a few hours after our first flight from YYZ lands in LHR. This LHR-CDG flight has the same PNR for both of us.
Any chance of checking out bags through to CDG when we check in at YYZ, or will we need to go through passport control twice and customs with our bags at LHR? It would be a lot easier for us to just go thru transfer at LHR. Unfortunately we could not make the YYZ-LHR-CDG bookings on the same PNRs because of personal circumstances.
Any chance of checking out bags through to CDG when we check in at YYZ, or will we need to go through passport control twice and customs with our bags at LHR? It would be a lot easier for us to just go thru transfer at LHR. Unfortunately we could not make the YYZ-LHR-CDG bookings on the same PNRs because of personal circumstances.
Mar 26, 2019, 8:43 am
#18
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Middle Earth, and often worse
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I just spoke on Skype with a BA agent and he suggested I ask at check-in in YYZ. They apparently have more discretion than BA personnel at the call center who must give "the official party line" - my quotation marks . We will both have to go through the same routing because I doubt that I can check in someone else's bags when they have a different citizenship/passport and a different family name.
The T5 Galleries lounge is sounding like a "necessary" visit after LHR baggage retrieval, check-in and security clearance
The T5 Galleries lounge is sounding like a "necessary" visit after LHR baggage retrieval, check-in and security clearance
Mar 26, 2019, 9:09 am
#19
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: London, UK
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There is some useful information on the technical details in this blog post https://javadude.wordpress.com/2017/...ing-refresher/
Mar 26, 2019, 9:51 am
#20
Join Date: Mar 2005
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It's the landing aircraft operator's responsibility to offload an aircraft, so they would handle that - often using a contracted handling agent such as Swissport. Then the departing operator handles the loading, again it often uses handling agents, and in many cases it could quite easily be the same agent. At NCL, for example, Swissport do 100% of apron handling for all airlines, so if you went Flybe to BA it could be the same person doing both activities, and it's definitely the same company.
The bit in between - swapping loads between aircraft - is the heart of interline agreements, so if two airlines have an interline agreement they agree to swap each other's baggage and to do this requires the use of barcodes using an IATA specified format. This gets invoked when you have through ticketing and so if you had a Flybe ticket from ABZ-NCL then NCL-LHR, then the Flybe agent could print a label through to LHR, Swissport in NCL would recognise the label and should redirect it to the BA service.
The bit in between - swapping loads between aircraft - is the heart of interline agreements, so if two airlines have an interline agreement they agree to swap each other's baggage and to do this requires the use of barcodes using an IATA specified format. This gets invoked when you have through ticketing and so if you had a Flybe ticket from ABZ-NCL then NCL-LHR, then the Flybe agent could print a label through to LHR, Swissport in NCL would recognise the label and should redirect it to the BA service.
Checked two bags and they arrived with me in Paris. No problems at all. The baggage interline agreements are typically quite effective.
Mar 26, 2019, 1:28 pm
#21
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Middle Earth, and often worse
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Yup, agreed. Many years ago things were different. In 1972 on a Canadian Pacific DC-8 I flew SYD-YVR with a fueling stop in Nandi and Hawaii. My pack-sack was checked in - with a barreled rifle action and umbrella wrapped in an oilskin. The item was naturally sticking out of the side of the pack-sack. No big deal to anyone on the entire flight. Could not do that now...
Mar 26, 2019, 7:20 pm
#22
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All I know is that I had a bag checked from BA to VS (one ticket) on GVA-LHR-JFK with a 1h55m connection (T5->T3) that ended up being 2h20 (early arrival from GVA, late departure from LHR, ironically as they were waiting for bags to come from T5), and they still couldn’t get the bag to me on time. 
Mar 26, 2019, 11:59 pm
#23
Join Date: May 2012
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All I know is that I had a bag checked from BA to VS (one ticket) on GVA-LHR-JFK with a 1h55m connection (T5->T3) that ended up being 2h20 (early arrival from GVA, late departure from LHR, ironically as they were waiting for bags to come from T5), and they still couldn’t get the bag to me on time.
Ironically, as other (non-OW) airlines still have extensive interline agreements with BA, if you wanted or needed to fly that routing on separate tickets, Swiss would be more likely to through check baggage than BA, meaning that in my case BA are actually getting less revenue than before this insanely customer-unfriendly step. Low liability and higher profits trump all other considerations.