Berks89

So, maybe I am just unlucky, but on all my recent BA flights, my “priority” baggage has been anything but prioritised. At Dallas last week, it seemed that every other passenger’s bag came out before my husband’s, despite him having “priority” baggage. He ended up missing his connection. Same situation on multiple other BA flights. Normally it’s just a bit frustrating but relatively inconsequential, but not when you have a tight connection and need to re-check your bags (in the US). This isn’t limited to BA - I had the same experience very recently with United. I feel like, pre-pandemic at least, I could pretty much always depend on an airline’s priority baggage system to be quick and reliable.

What are your experiences?

etiene

I believe I'm right in saying that BA don't have a priority bag service, the tags are just to make you feel more annoyed when your bags come out last important.

Berks89

😂😂 I can believe that

Lucanesque

IME BA's "priority" baggage is a something implied through the labels but never ever delivered. I've had so many bad experiences waiting for baggage that now I travel almost everywhere with hand luggage if I can.

jerry a. laska

Priority baggage is not available with BA operated flights even if priority tags are affixed.
See:
Priority Baggage Handling Not Currently Operational

chriswiles

This is so old now. Sorry, but with respect, we we talking about the same thing in 2019.

The lack of any 'priority' is a known issue. When I bag drop my CE/J luggage you don't even get a 'priority' tag and they are just attached to business bags to make the customer thinkthey'll get priority. As I said in many other threads, I flew 1C the other day and checked in at the same time as the lady next to me in 1A: at LHR our bags were close to being last to arrive.

Bags are often packed based on how soon you check-in I find. So if you check-in early, your bag is packed first and comes off last. Check in later and it's one of the first onto the carousel. Baggage handlers simply do not have the time to look for and pack priority bags separately and baggage handlers outside of the UK don't even know what those tags represent.

Basically: priority is a myth.

SKT-DK

And as a stark contrast, when connecting from BA short haul to JAL long haul at LHR late last year, JAL ground staff manually identified our luggage and re tagged it with JAL F tags as OWE in J, resulting in it arriving first on the belt at our final destination

xenole

SAN just now. Most of the bags came off before my priority bag

Global Entry though was top notch. Good photo on the screen within 2 secs, and the TSA agent was happy and chatty No long wait whilst logging in, moving a cushion, social media time, tea break etc. before they might get around to you like at JFK
Beats LAX and that's very good anyway.

Midships

From the current Oneworld website benefits page in the footnotes. It seems that BA is the only airline not offering this.

kangaroo route

The weird counterpoint - last 2 flights SYD-SIN-LHR (straight through) on BA16, in F our 4 bags came off absolutely first - and in one of the two flights, there was a delay (we didn’t wait around to see how long) before any other bags appeared at all! Not sure its relevant but we were the only “straight through” passengers in F that day, everyone else got on/off in SIN. Now I have probably jinxed it (unfortunately since we have the same itinerary coming up in 3 weeks) but it did seem that LHR bound F bags loaded in Sydney got some special treatment on those flights. I am sure somebody from BA will be around to read this and remind their handling staff in Sydney not to do such things in future!

JFX1764

(In theory) BA does offer priority luggage, but only for class of travel, not for status.

Delboy65

That disclaimer has been there for a long time now

Tafflyer

BA has to the best of my knowledge never offered priority baggage. It will tag it as such in case any partner does take it into account. BA is great at marketing and raising expectations but lousy at delivering.

lost_in_translation

My understanding (which could be wrong), is BA has not offered priority baggage on shorthaul in recent times, but did used to offer priority baggage on longhaul pre-COVID with varying results. It doesn’t appear to have returned.

drwook

I always thought it was largely down to destination ground handling, with a fair error rate for the 'wrong' luggage container getting unloaded first by mistake - anecdotal but I've had bags "early" and seen predominantly "tagged" bags off first more often than not on longhaul outbound flights. Not noticed it inbound to LHR though.