Priority labeled bags delivery on baggage conveyer belt | thread
 

I wanted to start a tread about priority labeled baggage handling. Often I find, it does not add to any convenience as many times it will not be unloaded first or sometimes as the last luggage. So priority members please share you experiences. I know KLM personal is actively reading this forum so perhaps it might help.

AMS-NWI 28TH NOVEMBER KL1512 Priority Labeled Bags where last ones to be delivered on the baggage conveyor belt.

I will be slightly OT as this is a KLM thread, but will provide AF information. On the AF side, it has always been hit & miss. During S1-2017, the situation was deteriorating constantly with the priority bags always delivered the last. I reported the problem several times and I have noticed a dramatic improvement either in CDG and in outstations and also for the delivery time since last summer. My bags are now consistently among the 1st on the belt.

It depends per outstation as it really is down to the handlers. In my experience:

So-so: AMS, SFO
Mostly good: BOS, CDG, CPT
Consistently great: SEA, JFK, LAX, EZE

The issue is double fold, first the handlers at the departing airport needs to load the bags in "the correct order", then the handlers at the arriving airport don't need to do anything except unload the bags in the same order, often in AMS you see that the last bags in are those from short connections and/or passengers who check in at the last minute, and so the priority bags are not the first ones out.

If the handlers in the departing airport load the priority bags at the back of the cargo area, there is nothing the handlers in the arriving airport can/will do to fix that, as their main priority is to get all the bags to the belt as quickly as possible.

Always works: GRU
Pretty much never works: AMS, NUE

FRA: totally random.
My bag was in the last few off the belt yesterday, and that was a flight with about 80 pax and not much hold luggage. Previous FRA arrival it was about 4th off the belt on a full 737 (with a broken zip, but that's surprisingly little damage for the amount that poor bag has to go through...)

BRU: priority bags delivered last
It was a few days ago and it was (not) hilarious to watch. I wasn't in a rush so I took a seat and watched all the priority labelled bag being delivered after all the others, I'm sure the J passenger appreciated the experience to arrive first to the belt and leave last. My bag was the last one. I pinged KLM in a direct message to let them know what aviapartner is doing.

For the story, I once watched the bags being offloaded, what happens with most contractors (Swissport, aviapartner, aviator) is that they take the priority bags out of the plane first (they were loaded last by KLM in Amsterdam) and then bury the bags under the rest of the normal bags.

In my experience, non-priority and priority labels are unloaded without order difference at AMS and SVO.

That has been my approach when not having them priority-tagged. It's very effective I can tell you.

In any case, KL *does* keep track of this to some degree. At least once when arriving at AMS I saw someone sitting at the belt who wasn't on the plane, with a clipboard and some forms, and she checked the bags to see if the priority ones came out first (nope, but close), how many non-priority bags came before the first priority bag, how long it took, etc.

Today NWI-AMS

My bags where out first together with all the other bags as there where just the 2 of us waiting at the conveyor belt!

Saw the same thing at BRU yesterday. (My bag, I since found out, was still floating around the depths of AMS somewhere at the time :rolleyes: )

GVA yesterday - priority long after non prio

JFK has been consistenly good, the yellow tag parade usually arrives first.

My last flight from AMS to Phuket with a layover in KUL, all in J for vacation...my priority tagged luggage didn't even make it. They only moved ~2/3rds of luggage from the KL 777-300 to the Malaysia Airlines plane, the rest arrived the next day. (luckily they only lost luggage this time and not the entire plane?)

"Happens all the time" according to the nice lady at the airport in Phuket

Suspected it coming, had a backpack/carry-on with stuff to 'survive' 2 days and once again proves my point to only travel with carry-on when doing business trips ;)

I can also speak more about AF than KL, at least from a recent perspective. Overall, I find that benefit to be very inconsistently applied, in other words, hit or miss.

At SIN, the delivery is so fast whatever the airline that having priority tags makes little sense. Anyway, the priority bags have always came before others.
At CDG which is AF home, I have had my bags delivered last much more than once though the trend is to a drastic improvement. Last week my two bags were literally the first on the belt (albeit after a long waiting time but that is another point).

One has to bear in mind a regular bug in the process which is the tagging itself when flying with the family for instance. When I fly with my kids in Y, only my bags are tagged with the priority barcode (and the "F" letter on it), even with a common PNR. Of course all of our bags get the yellow tags but they are most of the time useless as the baggage system is assigning my bags to the priority container and my kids' bags to the regular containers. Upon arriving at destination, it makes absolutely no sense having half of our bags being delivered with priority and the other half upon the end. Sometimes though they all come together with priority, meaning the bags have been manually assigned to the priority container thanks to the yellow tags.

On a side note, all of this also depends very much about the relationship between the airline, its pockets and its contractors. At CDG, SQ uses two belts for its flight from SIN: that is very efficient when properly applied (and believe me, it is). But it also comes with a cost for the airline to use two belts and the pressure it decides to put on the handling company to deliver a great service.