Heavy bag, surly agent
 

The other day I was coming home from Houston. I was automatically checked in, and went to the Elite counter to drop my bag.

I went through the checkin process at the kiosk and put my bag on the scale. It was 55 pounds. The agent looked at it and freaked out - I mean seriously read me the riot act in a loud voice, telling me that my bag was too heavy. I didn't check the right box on the screen or something. She dramatically ripped up the bag tag and said that I was wasting her time because now she had to RE. DO. THE. WHOLE. THING.

Honestly I usually have no idea if I go over 50 pounds because I carry a lot of materials and sales collateral in my suitcase. I'm usually just over or just under 50 pounds. But that's supposed to be fine for a Platinum.

I've never had an agent react like that. And besides, how am I supposed to know when I check in online what my bag weighs?

Seemed pretty dramatic and unnecessary.

Just venting I guess!

Don't understand why the agent make a big fuss about it. My mom just checked 3 bags in at 67 lbs each last month and the agent just go on about it as normal. Only an extra tag "heavy bag" added to each bag. Regardless, the respond from the agent is not acceptable.

I've had similar experiences before with bags over 50 lbs. One of the screens on the e-ticket machine asks if any of your bags are overweight, and this is where you're supposed to click "yes" in order to avoid this situation. I think it's misleading; if my weight allowance is 70 lbs. instead of 50, then technically a 55 lb. bag shouldn't be considered "overweight". I tried explaining this to an agent once (I thought she was about to charge me overweight fees) and I didn't get very far. C'est la vie.

Had a similar thing happen to me at IAH the other week, had a bag that weighed in at 51lbs and the agent at check-in got upset with me and attempted to charge me a $100 fee. Ended up putting a few clothes in a carryon and checking that through as well. Funny that when flying out of MSY I've had bags between 50 and 55lbs and they let it slide without comment.

I hope you got her name and will write it in. This sort of unprofessional behavior should not be tolerated.

Do we hear disproportionately more bad things about customer service in IAH and EWR relative to the rest of the network (1) because of an actual culture difference, (2) or just because a huge hub with more agents is likely to have more agents who are having a bad day, (3) or just because of random chance with small sample size?

Yes! :p

I don't work in the obby, so not sure what the screen asks in terms of defining what "heavy" is. The reason for the "heavy midifier: is two-fold (potentially 3 fold.) a) To notify load planning of bags over 50 lbs to get an accurate weight/balance, b) to put a heavy sticker on the bag so that the agents lifitn it don't misinterpret the weight when they lift and to prevent injuries from doing such, and c) for depending on your status, for determining if one must pay charges for overweight.

I think you all think that since (c) may not apply, that (a) and (b) don't, or at least are unaware of them. No excuse for the agents anger if the checkin machine isn't clear, but (a) and (b) still need to be noted. Perhpas UAL and their HQ people need to re-evaluate whet the language on the screen says in determining what the propt is. Again, I don't know what it says. If it doesn't define "overweight", the fault is with the mgmt that determined the verbage. If it is defined, then the fault is with the passenger for providing incorrect/inaccurate data. In either case, the agent should point out the correct procedure in a constructive tone, not an irritated tone.

OP claims the agents was dramatic and un-necessary. Maybe, but poining out the inaccuracies of the bag weight in a less than polite manner is no more overly dramatic or un-necessary than posting about it on an internet message board. Sure, it is within your rights and I have no problem that you did, but if one is un-necessary, then so to is carrying on about it days later on the internet.

An "overweight" bag is considered to be over 50 lbs.; if you suspect your bag of being near that limit, just weigh it on the scale provided before you hurriedly click past the corresponding screen at the kiosk. Even if you aren't paying for the extra weight, the agent needs to tag the bag with one of the "heavy" markers so the handlers know to treat it differently.

This doesn't excuse bad behavior; if you caught this woman's name, please alert someone regarding it. But there are valid non-financial reasons they need to know if the bag is over 50 lbs.

EDIT: Looks like fastair has also pointed out some other good reasons the airlines request this information.

Then COUA should locate the kiosks next to a scale. This is not hard. If a kiosk is not next to a scale, then don't allow that kiosk to check a bag. If it is next to a scale, then the kiosk should walk the pax through the process of weighing each bag. The scale should then send the weight to the kiosk. After all bags are weighed, the kiosk should then compare the number of bags and the weight of each to the pax's allowance and then if required, ask to swipe the credit card for payment. Then the correct tags are printed.

Or COUA employees could stop being mean.

Ok, fantasy time over ....

To be honest, as a 1k who rarely checks bags, and when I do, I always have the 1k or first class check in agent take care of all this, I don't have a clue how the masses check bags in the era of the kiosk.

But in the new United, I expect in my declining years when body won't let me carry on, I will, to avoid the screaming, just use my lifetime 210 pound allowance and claim each bag as heavy. So that means more pax will be mistakenly offloaded due to weight and balance. Oh well, not my problem.

The "heavy" tag doesn't denote that you have to pay the fee. It's there purely so the people who deal with it know that it's more than 50 pounds. That's actually why the weight concept never took off in the States, unlike in many parts of the world. The reasoning is that they need to charge a fee for a bag more than 50 pounds, because there's actually a difference in who can handle the heavy bags. In some airports, a heavy bag requires 2 people. In others, they are paid more for the heavy bag, or specific people have to deal with them.

ETA: I posted this from the app, and I see that in my overnight absence, fastair long beat me to it

I think there's a corporate culture difference.

My impression as a multi-year CO and UA Elite, well before this merger stuff started, is that CO seems more likely to try to blame the customer for things.

Not to say every UA agent is perfect, or most CO agents are bad (most are very polite), but after writing this in (in an attempt to improve things), I would move on and write it off to 20 years of dysfunctional CO culture manifesting itself in unusual behavior on the front line.

Was this actually an agent of COUA or an Airserv agent?

They tag the bags at IAH...

fastair, thanks so much for your clarification. Never did really understand the "overweight" process (what is and isn't). And thanks to all those agents who DIDN'T make a fuss when I didn't do this correctly.

There is not really much of a culture difference, other than CO's culture is a bit more uniform. I've been a multi-year elite on both airlines, as well, and I have had far more problems with UA employees than CO. That said, EWR is clearly the worst bunch of employees in the entire combined system, but that is closely followed by IAD, DEN and LAX.