seat_4D

Or have Qantas Baggage Handlers ability to comprehend the order Business - Priority - Rest of Plane deteriorated?

I have gone out of my way to only carry on within Australia for the past 5 years but my last 4 trips have had no choice but to check baggage. The wait "Premium" passengers have before their bags appear on the belt is a disgrace.

Tonight I counted bags off on our flight to ADL. The first 37 bags not tagged Business or Priority, nor possessing WP or SG bag tags. From there it was pretty much every other bag that had any level of priority until mine came off at #83

Given there were 5 PAX in J (excluding repositioning crew) and only 4 WP "Introductions" in WHY, assume 10 - 15 SG is it really that difficult to get the first 30 bags off the plane those of your most regular flyers?

Compare this to HKG and PVG for example where in my experience the first non priority bag apears after the last priority bag how are we so crap at getting something so simple right?

OK this may seem pathetic, but given Priority Baggage is a stated benefit of WP and SG (and QCPS for that matter) shouldnt a little bit of effort go into actually delivering it?

LTN Phobia

I cannot remember the priority ones ever working to be honest.

However one thing that I find them to be impressively good at - breaking stuff in suitcases. I have never had breakages of items in my luggage anywhere, except when Australia is involved.

Not surprising though, as I have watched with horror on many occasions suitcases given a 6' drop

djpjapan

My feeling on this is it is horrible on domestic but usually fine on international. I swear my bags are almost always in the last 25% to come out on domestic despite being WP

As for the breaking of stuff ... I think this will sum it up... Was at Tullamarine several years ago watching the Q handlers load bags onto a plane using one of the angled conveyor belts. The bags were literally being thrown a couple of metres from trailer to the belt with around 10% bouncing and I saw several bouncing off onto the tarmac before being picked up and lifted back on

thadocta

No no no no no, you misunderstand the meaning of "Priority". The priority is to make sure that your bags actually get there and don't get left behind. In order to ensure this, they make sure that they are the first bags loaded, and being the last to be unloaded is merely a consequence of this.

Dave

Globaliser

I always love having the insider's perspective!

Presumably, if that "priority" fails and the bags are then tagged "RUSH", there's an industry etymology that explains why it then takes them ten days to make the trip that would normally have taken 10 hours?

im.daniel

Priority baggage is a farce on QF domestically.

og

To travel on AS in Alaska you soon understand the significance of thadocta's comments. A recent flight had the announcement "welcome to AS flight xxxx, and we are pleased to announce that all checked bags have been loaded - and we were not forced to bump anyone's bag today - ain't that great!"

Forget the pretty coloured tags, just be grateful it made the flight.

Dave Noble

From arriving at carousel , how long did you atually have to wait for the bags to start coming out and how long once they started coming out before your bag was available?

Airvan00

Just done 4 segments in J in the last month and had to check luggage.
My bag came out in the first 10 each time.
But I do have one of those old " Australian Airlines Flight Deck club" baggage lable tags.
May be they feel sorry for me.

seat_4D

Last night from row 13 on 73H via toilet and in no real hurry - about 5 minutes for the first bags (there were 6) then about 3 more minutes to the first "flow" of bags, about 5 minutes for mine

Last week arriving in SYD from for 23 on A330 about 10 minutes for the first bag, about 10 minutes for mine

Last week arriving in PER from row 3 on A330 about 15 minutes for the first bag, about 8 minutes for mine

The common issue though is the inability of our baggage handlers to do something so simple. If it isnt a benefit, stop selling it as one. If it is a benefit - make the monkeys whose job it is to deliver the benefit accountable for its delivery. It isnt that difficult

seat_4D

Given you are, on any given flight, inside of 10% of the elite / J pax that is a pretty poor ratio.

You wonder why so many people carry on, and carry on above the allowable limits when the service delivery is so crap.

Seriously, if I were to check bags on every flight I take a year I would spend over 14 hours standing staring at a black belt wondering if my bag will ever show up!

NM

If the order the bags are loaded onto the aircraft means that non-priority bags come off first, I see no reason that they should be delayed just so the priority bags appear first on the belt. So long as the process of getting the non-priority bags out is not delaying the priority bags, then there is no problem.

I expect much of the "blame" for priority bags coming out after regular bags should be targeted at the origin airport and not the destination airport. Upon arrival, I expect the bags are generally delivered in the order they come off the aircraft and into the handling area.

serfty

I believe policy is that Priority Bags should get loaded last or otherwise such that they are generally first of the aircraft.

Adherence to said policy is what appears to be problematic.

NM

Yes, that may be the policy. But will not always be the case, especially if there are late bags arriving due to tight connections etc. I expect even those who have priority bags would appreciate that delaying loading priority bags to ensure they are off first may cause an overall longer delay as the departure is delayed and possibly even missing a departure slot.

So there will be times when some non-priority bags may be last on and first off. And I see no reason to delay those non-priority bags just to ensure the "appearance" of priority bags out first. So long as they are not adversely delaying the priority bags, it makes sense to just get them out onto the belt as quickly as they arrive off the aircraft.

I see no reason to delay a flight's departure just to ensure there are no non-priority bags off before the priority bags. That would just delay everyone, including those with and without priory bags, as well as those traveling HLO, and makes no sense to me.

serfty

Having a rather more than passing knowledge of this, I will simply state there are processes set up at each port that should enable the efficient loading of priority luggage/freight in a manner to optimally get it to the destination port carousels before other 'non priority' luggage.

These processes indeed include references to the handling of late arriving or "ad hoc" freight/bags. For example such references include the location of the aircraft to load such (forward/aft etc.) in contrast to the that designated priority.

In any case it would be rare that such freight comprise a significant amount of hold utilisation.

Generally these processes work well when followed - the problem is in getting them adhered to, both at the origination and the destination posts.

It is a management problem of which a major part is in combating the egalitarian mood of the Australian workforce.