D'oh - CX/KA integration +(baggage handling)
 

Just completed a 6-leg trip that includes a combination of KA and CX. Flew over to hangzhou from tpe via hkg, first leg cx, second leg KA. Even though I had business class "priority" stickers on the checked luggage, looks like KA didn't put any priority to the bag on arrival at HGH. It came out almost last. But I wasn't too worried... HGH is a small regional airport and KA used a A320... so the delay wasn't more than 3-5 min.

But if it was a different airport (ESP. LAX) then i'd have a big issue. Whats up with the baggage handlers at LAX anyways? I know its not a CX problem but they are HORRIBLE! Always takes the longest to get bags there. Priority luggage got mixed with non-priority luggage. Instead of 2 carousels as announced, everything came out on the same carousel, without order!

My guess is that this isn't so much a question of integration as logistics. It seems to me that it would be much easier to do prioritised baggage handling in containerised holds. All of CX's planes are containerised, so they can simply hold back one container and load the priority baggage into that so it is last on, first off. I can see that this isn't so easy to do consistently at the individual bag level when the bags are going up the conveyor one by one and being manually packed into the hold as they are on the A320. Prioritisation then depends on the individuals doing the loading and unloading to look for and respect the tags.

In HKG, it seems that crew (if any) came out first, followed by first priority, followed by priority.

I flew to PVG from HKG last month. My luggage came out early, but I stayed in the luggage area waiting from my friends to arrive from SFO (another flight). I did notice that some priority bags came out behind some non-priority luggage on my HKG-PVG flight.

Yeap.. same experience with my flight last month, even when the carousel next to ours was empty. It was very chaotic. The airport need to understand that TBIT's baggage carosel are simply way too small to fit a fully loaded B747. And when I proceeded to hand in the customs form (I folded it), the customs person would not take it, and made me stand clueless/confused for 10 seconds, then said "I can't read it when it is folded!" How rude...

At LHR,no matter BA(T1) or CX(T3),my bags(normal priority) were always coming out later than those non-priority bags.

I was on a CX LHR flight last week,EY bags came out the first,then First Priority and mine was inside the latest group.

LHR is not typical for buggage handling.