Let Down By First Class Baggage Delivery
 

This is probably a first world problem :D.

Just arrived home from PEK via DXB into GLA and thoroughly enjoyed my First Class flights. Slept well on the first leg, had a shower on the A380 (wow, couldn't stop grinning) and got to DXB feeling really refreshed. Was expecting it to be busy in DXB on arrival but the transfer from concourse B to A was the quickest I've had so far and got to try the First Class lounge in Concourse A. Had a nice breakfast and chillout before my onward flight.

Boarded through bus gate A7, felt as if we drove half way to Glasgow before finally getting on to the plane. Departed from the stand on time and a short taxi to the runway. Was well looked after by the young member of Cabin Crew who informed me it was her first flight as First Class cabin crew. She done a brilliant job.

Landed in GLA more or less on time, was quick through Immigration and straight to baggage reclaim. Five minute wait when the first bags appeared. then waited, and waited but noticed that the first bags out all had Business labels with one or two First labels. Then the next load of bags followed. No additional labels so quicly deduced Economy luggage.

Went to the baggage desk and asked if a possibility my luggage hadn't been transferred in DXB. Informed that they had not been told of any luggage not been loaded in DXB. Asked for my name and she would check but another Business Baggage bin was being brought from the aircraft as we spoke. Informed her I was travelling First and her reply was a slight Oohh, let me check. Whilst I was standing there, another F passenger came across and asked the same. As we were both standing there, I saw one of my bags appear and quickly retrieved it. The baggage lady then informed me that she had just been informed that the First Class baggage had been loaded in with Economy Class baggage in Dubai. She said that should not have happened and was going to inform the EK station manager in GLA.

I waited another five minutes or so before my second bag appeared and a total of approximately 45 minutes from disembarkation compared to 20 minutes tops on previous J flights. The chauffeur also commented when I finally got out that he was wondering what the delay was as it's quite unusual for F Class pax to be that long.

I'm sure that's not the worst story to be told but not what I expecting going by previous experience. Was a bit surprised that they were loaded wrongly in DXB of all places.

Thoughts?

Safe & Happy Travels

S

It happens but EK is on the whole very good with priority delivery: I've only had it fail about 3 times in the last 50 trips or so and even then I only had to wait 10-15 minutes (apart from once where there was a misconnect and it was delivered 6 hours later).

Write in to EK if you wish and receive some goodwill miles.

It's not happened to me yet, one thing EK do consistently well is f baggage delivery.

Out of interest eternaltransit, was this arriving in DXB or at outstations?

m3red, this was my impression, out of the very small amount of EK flights compared to yourself, travelling mostly in J, have never waited any significant amount of time.

The baggage agent advised me to write in to Customer Service. Not expecting anything from them and only to highlight what happened.

As I said, the experience was really good from start to nearly finish, just that last little bit, but again, First World problems :D.

The other good thing about the flight was I acheived Gold :cool:.

Safe & Happy Travels

S

I thought how promptly luggage comes out depends more on the arrival airport than anything else

Bags are loaded in separate containers so there is a service issue here. One of the best things about j and f is not waiting almost an hour for bags.

Arriving at DXB, BKK and CHC. That said, it's more about loading into the correct container, not the arriving port that matters - in which case the culprits were likely LGW, DXB and BKK.

But as I said, extremely rare. It's not like BA at LHR ;)

Similar issue on EK code share flights when the first sector is not on EK.

Don't think EK will re-tag it with J/F labels when loading it into aircraft.

Had a 45 min wait for bags at DEL once on a EK ticket in J (first sector not EK but EK code share). My bags were delivered literally at the end!!!.

DEL is quite good with delivery of priority bags and I have never had to wait more than 5-10 min there.

My bag on arrival @DEL did not have a business priority tag on it .:-(

I had a similar experience upon arrival in BOS on one of my last trips. I think I was the first person off the plane and it seemed like my bag was one of the last to come off, certainly economy bags were off before I received mine.

Are events like this reflective of a loading problem in Dubai or an offloading problem at the outstation?

Could be either - but mainly a loading problem as bags are directed to specific containers - in the contracts with baggage handling at each outstation they are quite specific with the order in which bags must be delivered (and the time to belt).

DXB doesn't have the same incentive :)

At my outstation, it happens often that luggage with short transit at DXB come out before F. That's clearly an improvement remaining to be done here.
At least, I hope they are not stacked up above F luggage.

In BEY it has been constant over many many years: DXB J bags followed by transit J bags (and few status/short connection Y), then DXB F bags followed by transit F (best time was 50ish!).

So I wrote to EK yesterday informing them of what happened on Saturday and received a reply today. Is this a normal 'cut and paste' sort of reply like you would get from BA or does it look like they will actually investigate and offer more feedback?

Dear Mr Saltire74,

Thank you for your recent correspondence.

The events that you have described are being looked into and one of our Customer Affairs Officers will write to you once our review is complete.

The review itself may involve a number of operational departments, and possibly third-party providers, therefore our response to you may take up to 30 days. Please be assured that we will do all possible to reply inside 30 days.

In any future correspondence with us, please quote the above reference.

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to write to us.

Yours sincerely,

C. S.
Customer Affairs UK & Ireland
Emirates Airline

Safe & Happy Travels

S

Standard acknowledgement of your correspondence - they should reply in a week or two depending on the complexity with the outcome and any applicable service recovery gesture if any.