Poor experience with delayed luggage.
 

Had a flight JFK-TPE-SGN (BR31-BR395)yesterday. Business class with Priority tag and everything. Only 1/2 checked bag arrived in SGN with BR395. Literally stand by the conveyor belt for 2.5 hours. The other bag ended up on BR391 which is a TPE-SGN flight arriving 2 hours after 395.

There was zero communication where our bags will be. There was like 20 of us standing there like dckheads. We were at the airport's lost & found filling out the form when somebody said their relative found their bag on BR391 which was an entirely different conveyor belt. Got there and lo-and-behold the bag was there with the "Priority" tag no less. Total joke. I would have expected to get a single text/email/app notification saying: "hey your bag is on the later flight" or an inflight announcement that some bags didn't make it onto the plane.

Their inflight service is really great but after this I'm not sure I'll fly them again. Their North American phone line is permanently on hold and communication is just non existent.

Seems many airlines/airports are experiencing baggage related issues these days for some reason.

While not ideal, a 2 hour delay is not too bad. On my recent trip, LH lost my bag on the outbound and I just got it back after 26 days. No communication whatsoever in between and when they found it, they sent it to the east coast while I’m on the west coast, and that added on another 3 days delay.

Not defending BR as I agree they should have had better communication in this situation, but my personal experience with BR has always been excellent. I also found them very responsive when issues did come up. Hopefully it’s a one time failure and not a sign of things to come.

Not to dismiss your annoyance, but this really is just another day in the life of air travel. Baggage mishandling is very common, particularly when transit points are involved. The fact that you managed to retrieve the delayed bag before leaving the airport is a pretty good outcome. At some point, you'll come to realise that priority tags mean very little. They absolutely do not reduce the likelihood of mishandling.

I can assure you, BR (along with TPE) are far from the worst when it comes to dealing with checked bags. While I appreciate that this was an unpleasant experience, no airline in the world can pinpoint your bag down to a tee. A lot goes on behind the scenes that don't get communicated properly. It's common for rerouted/delayed bags to just... show up at a destination, to be dealt with by the ground staff. The best thing you can do to help with future travels, short of going hand-baggage only, is to invest in AirTags.

This sounds like a mistake from the baggage handling company sending the container to the wrong belt(BR395 vs BR391). Im assuming all the bags that came out from the wrong belt was all priority?
Typically EVA has a rep that roams around baggage area, id say, next time find them, they usually can contact the baggage company rep to find your bag and sort out the issue.

I'm pretty sure the bags just didn't make the connection. BR31-BR395 is relatively tight on a good day.

That’s not what I wanted to hear. I’m flying LAX-CNX on EVA in 4 weeks. I have a 70 minute connection at Taipei. I guess I’ll be looking for air tags on EBay

When things go right, they should be waiting for you (human or signs) informing you the bag is delayed. Obviously things didn't go right. There were some labor problems at TPE earlier in January. I wonder if they have really settled it and if this was the result of it? https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eva-...s-eva-air.html

Yeah I think an AirTag would have been helpful. Thought about it but forgot about it before the trip. It might be because BR31 was late to TPE, literally deplaned and went through securities and got to BR395 right at boarding time. I was surprised how quick it was, only 5 minutes top. Obviously being in J helps expediting things.

Bit of a shame because inflight service was stellar.