ND76

I'm sitting in the Sky Club in SAN just now. I just got a notification on my Iphone that my checked bag had been loaded on to the 0815 ATL flight. Only problem is, my aircraft was being towed from its parking place to Gate 48 at the time the notification was received, and before any bags had been loaded onto the plane.

First shenanigans with upgrades. Now, this. What's the world coming to?

emrdoc

Oh the humanity!

Renes Points

Existing thread on this

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...ain-about.html

BenA

I'm guessing this is a widebody aircraft. On widebodies, bags aren't simply tossed in the baggage hold - they're loaded into containers first. As such, the bag scan naturally occurs when it's placed into the container - once it's inside the barcode isn't accessible anymore. There is, I'm sure, a secondary scan to ensure that container ends up on board, but it is probably tracked separately through a cargo system.

tl;dr not fake at all

davetravels

Interesting. You're right. It's a B764!

Qwkynuf

I had this same thing happen yesterday, and it wasn't a widebody at all. It was an E175 from SMF to SEA. Scared the crap out of me because we had a late inbound flight AND a gate change. Originally, we were supposed to depart from A10, but they moved us to A12 and put an LAX flight there, also on an E175.

I got the notification that my bag had been loaded probably 10 minutes before my inbound plane landed. The redcoat said that he checked the hold of the LAX plane himself, and there were no SEA bags on it, but I stood and watched the conveyor when they finally loaded my plane, and my bags were there.

My best guess is that they had to have scanned the bags onto the plane when they loaded them onto the cart. I hope they don't make a practice of this, because it really doesn't allow for catching a bag that may fall off between the terminal and the plane.

Widgets

What did the tracking info show?

Zorak

Ah, that solves my mystery then, I had a similar situation where the inbound for my next flight hadn't even taken off from the other airport yet and yet my bag was reported loaded:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...l#post27371750

Although while the explanation makes perfect sense as far as the logistics goes, I think we can agree that reporting it in that way is confusing and can make it feel like shenanigans are going on even when they aren't.

Qwkynuf

Tracking info showed the same thing - bag on plane at 9:53am - inbound didn't land until 10:10 or so.

jrl767

Fake "Baggage Loaded on Plane" E-Message

my initial thought was that ND76 was regaling us with an April Fool's joke

Widgets

Which flight was that? The closest I see is CP5735, but that aircraft arrived at SMF gate at 9:39am, making 9:53am a reasonable loading time.

Qwkynuf

It was 5735, but that plane was definitely not at the gate at 9:39.

As I understand it, 5735 was originally supposed to depart from A10 at 10:30 (later delayed to 10:37) There was an LAX flight that was scheduled to leave from A12 somewhere around the same time. They swapped equipment when our plane arrived, and our aircraft went to LAX. The inbound LAX flight didn't arrive until after 10:00, and went to gate A12. We didn't depart on that plane until almost 11:00.

At the point that I was talking to the gate agent about it, trying to make sure that my bags didn't somehow get loaded onto the wrong plane, it was 10:10, there was no aircraft at A12, and the bag tracking info said that my stuff had been loaded 17 minutes earlier. A10 and A12 share a seating area, so you can easily see both parking areas by just looking out the window.

I watched my bags go up the loading conveyor through that same window about 10 minutes later, but there was no change to the tracking info - it still showed that they had been put on the plane 40 minutes before.

Widgets

That is strange! I think you were on N635CZ, which arrived from LAX at your gate at 10:10, so anything before 10:10 would be the wrong aircraft.

Qwkynuf

Strange indeed! I was really concerned - going home at the end of the week, didn't want to have to deal with tracking my stuff down if it went to LA instead of PDX. And much of it is needed when I fly out again on Monday...

ND76

When I made my initial post, I had forgotten that it was April 1. Rather than complaining, I was reporting a factual matter; I thought it was odd that Delta represented to me that my bag had been loaded onto the plane (it was N841MH, a 767-400) while the plane was being towed to the gate and had not yet received any luggage.

My bag and I were reunited at my destination; in fact, it was the second bag onto the belt.

I have no scheduled travel for 3 weeks.