OW transit at JFK (T4->T8)
 

Does OW have transit checkin at T4 or do I need haul my luggage to T8 to be rechecked for my AY flight to HEL. I am arriving with LAN Chile from Santiago in the morning so it would be nice to get rid of my luggage after customs at T4...I also hope AA can issue my boarding pass so that I do not need to wait until the AY checkin opens and I can access the AC and hit the showers in the morning after over 24hrs of travel (luckily in J, though) and a tight SCL transit (=no time for shower there later this evening..)

I have only done AA->AY transits at JFK (after the new T8 opened) so thanks for any insight.

I haven't used T4 in over 2 years, but at that time there was no baggage dropoff allowed for AA flights; might be different for AY, but it is best to take your bags with you to T8 if you don't want lose your luggage.

If LA cannot issue your AY boarding pass in SCL then you will not be able to get it at JFK until 3 or 4 hours before AY flight time (much easier to get them issued from other than the departing airport). Unfortunately the AC outside security is now closed so you probably won't have access.

I am in SCL now and the LA people are saying that Air Lingus agent will issue the BP at T4 "transit area"...whatever that means as I need to clear immigration and customs anyway...they seem pretty clueless about this...

I am prepared to haul my luggage to T8 and try to get AA to arrange me through security with my OLCI printed AY boarding pass if they are not able to issue a new one on benalf of AY in the morning...

Hilarioius, as EI is no longer part of OW and has no access to the AY computer system. But all you need the BP for is to satisfy TSA to let you airside, so the OLCI printed BP is perfectly fine for that. Didn't think that AY supported OLCI for US origin flights, good to hear that they do this now.

They do, to some extent. There's a note on AY webpage that you still need to change the BP at CI counter prior to your flight, I suppose TSA won't accept any self printed BPs...so ex-US OLCI for AY is somewhat strange too...I have my hopes with AA Premium CI agents at T8, they are usually very, very accommondating to special requests.

how did this work out? please let us know....

Didn't work out at all...there's a baggage drop off point at T4 but you need to have you luggage tagged to your connecting flight, so no luck there. Hauled my luggage to T8. Here AA was not able to check me in and I had to wait until AY opened their checkin at around 2pm to be able to access the flagship lounge...

Clearly I blame LA (as did both AA and AY!!) about this as they really should have been able to check my luggage all the way through, even though it always needs to be taken through customs in US...Another issue would have been that LA was not able to issue my BP for JFK-HEL on AY so I couldn't have cleared the TSA check point here even if the luggage thing would have worked out. Another thing to blame LA about. (the OLCI printout isn't good enough).

LA is a great airline on some aspects but their ground staff is not always too competent, I pushed the issue yesterday but clearly I should have pushed even more and request for a supervisor. This "Air Lingus" s**t was another story...not a sign about EI visible at T4 transit area...


This was OW at its worst, I'd say. It might have worked better if AA and AY would use the same IT system but as they still have a mix within OW there was nothing they could do..

Probably not the time to ask (you must be really exhausted from your journey....!) but I wonder about the luggage drop-off point at T4.

Was it manned? If it wasn't manned, I'm wondering whether even if you had been able to get your bags tagged properly at SCL whether you would have had enough faith to just leave your bags there....

If it was manned, was there really no-one (i.e. a supervisor) who could have been a bit more helpful? I appreciate that you don't want to monopolize a busy location, but with hours and hours to kill and relatively infrequent transfer traffic from T4 to T8, I'm wondering whether the issue was entirely systemic or partially human (baggage folks who can't be bothered to help....)

Actually I'm pretty OK after 48hrs of travel!

About the T4 luggage drop, yes it was manned, there are maybe 7-8 desks for different airlines (maybe 2-3 agents working and they seemed work cross different desks). I got the feeling that they will only take your bags if they are tagged for your flight ex-JFK. I wouldn't mine leaving my bags there...they could be lost in any case...as I said, the desks seemed totally unable to re-tag anything, or issue BPs for that matter, just taking bags that had been already tagged.

Cheers

One last question -----

Do you know whether the reverse would have worked any better? That is, if you were checking in with AY at HEL, would they be able to tag bags through to LAN destinations via JFK, and be able to issue you boarding passes that you would have been able to use to get through TSA security at T-4 (after transferring from T-8)? In other words, is there a workaround that we should be requesting at check-in? Thanks!

I haven't done a ex-HEL AY-->LA checkin through JFK but with AY & AA it has worked out just fine. AY has been able to tag luggage beyond JFK and I have been able to hand them out directly after clearing customs, this has worked fine for years, well prior to the new T8 already.

I'm pretty sure AY will be able to check luggage through to an LA flight as well, about boarding passes I cannot say for sure as I have no experience. But I think this is what OW is supposed to about so most likely they can do it!

Anyway, when such cases do appear in the future, I will push my case much further than I did this time around as clearly both AA and AY said LA made a simple mistake and didn't follow the alliance procedures correctly. They thought the luggage check-through should have been 100% obvious thing to do..boarding pass is a different story as the AY flight was still >24hrs away when I checked in.

Cheers

All OW airlines have the capability to interline luggage and issue BP for all other OW airlines -- this is one of the conditions of entry into OW (as an aside, it is also the reason that EI left OW -- the cost to change their computer systems to interface with JL was too great). So, the only reason for not having luggage properly tagged and BP issued is a lazy or untrained agent. LA and IB have this problem chronically, but asking for a supervisor invariably results in being able to do it (they know the magic key strokes). You do have to be persistent at times. AY did have a problem with E-tickets until about a year ago, but this is now fixed and no longer an issue. For the OP's journey it should have been done routinely -- shame on LA for having such shoddy agents at their hub!

As someone who works in T4.....your luggage would only have been accepted in the transfer area if it was checked all the way to your final destination and you had enough time between flights. If your connections are tight, say less than 2 hours, I would always take the bags with you to the next terminal. The bags "touch" several different hands.

Those desks do not have any bag tag or boarding card printers (we had them in the past the but the airlines asked that they be removed). Not sure about the EI agents as they are only there when they have a flight and not 8am when LA is there.