Priority Handling for Luggage
 

I posted a while back about a tight connection we have in DEN coming back from Cancun. Based on past experience (albeit at different airports) it seems to me the holdup won't be getting off the plane quickly, but rather waiting for the luggage to come out so we can go through customs/immigration/etc. and re-checkin for our connection.

Is Frontier amenable to placing "Priority" tags or something to that effect on our checked luggage when we check-in at Cancun so that our bags are the first unloaded? Anyone have any luck requesting something like this?

You might be able to get someone to put a little purple tag on your bag, but it has been my experience watching bags come down the carousel that it will not guarentee your bag getting down to claim any sooner. As far as I can tell, most of the time the priority bags just come down with the normal bags in whatever order they happened to be in when offloaded from the plane.

I recently arrived from PV. The delay will not be from the bags coming out, but rather the walk from the plane to immigration. I swear it was a mile, with lots of moving walkways. We arrived and there were 4 windows open at immigration, and they quickly and efficiently got us through. We were the only flight arriving at that time. I was about in the middle of the crowd, and bags had just started arriving after I cleared customs. (don't forget to put any purchased liquid duty free items in your checked luggage, as you'll have to exit and reclear security. While I had time to grab a quick bite to supplement my Sun chips, before I got my second bag of....Sun Chips, with a 1:15 connection.

I would be surprised if they would consider giving your bag any kind of priority. It seems Frontier uses a "bank" approach to flight scheduling, so everyone connecting is likely in the same boat. Speaking of which, what a clusterf**k the end of the B terminal was when it seemed there was a plane departing to every west coast city departing within 5 minutes of each other from gates with podiums no more than 10 feet apart!

I have watched them put the purple Priority tags on my bags a few times, but with one exception, they have not been on my bags when they come down the carousel. The exception was the one time when the gate agent embedded the Priority tag in the glue of the barcode tag rather than having it looped around loose. I have a feeling they are treating the tags as more of a loading priority and yanking them off when the bags get on the plane.

Update to the original post. We were connecting in DEN going from CUN back home to SLC last Thursday night. We were scheduled to land at 8:25pm and our connecting flight was scheduled to depart at 9:45pm. I had been worried about making it through customs/immigration and security in that short of time.

As it turns out, we didn't make it to the gate until about 8:38. Luckily, the FAs were really good about making an announcement that there were approximately 40 people with connections and asked that they be allowed to get off first. We went up, up, up, and over, and down to customs/immigration. That went smoothly and our two bags were actually among the first 15 on the belt. In fact, we were through security and heading down to the tram by 9:10 - plenty of time to spare. The only negative, as my wife pointed out several times, was that only the south security gates were open - the furthest point from where we entered Jeppson.

At least we were better off than some others making the hurried dash - they had a connecting flight that left at 9:15. I don't know why anyone would book such a connection.

Yeah it can be a pain for those of you with late night departures.

They close around 9pm IIRC. I've always wondered why it had to be the south checkpoint that stays open, its out of the way for everyone.

Checko

The south check point is the one closest to Southwest and United. These airlines are the "darlings" of the Denver Airport Authority.

Connecting Luggage has a higher priority because of the connect time. It should be the first one up the luggage belt, to get the bags through customs.