Priority Baggage
 

Now that oneworld has implemented alliance-wide priority baggage, how is this working down under?

Are OW priority tags being honored? Are the bags actually coming out first? how do you get priority tags for QF if everybody tags their own bags? i doubt they leave a container full of priority tags for the taking.

Haha experiences people! tell your stories.

The best: LAx-SYD in J with F (yellow) tags. Bags already on carousel as we walked from Immigration. This was 2 weeks ago. I really doubt if there were many if any people from our flight in front of us. A dream run.
The worst: QF into AKL with all priority bags being delivered at the same time 30 min after the last non tagged bag was delivered (truely!).
No real trends on intervening dozen flights with AA and LA - but still no confidence that you can rely on priority delivery.

Completed combined DAS13/DONE3+some extra sectors last month.
CBR-SYD-oNRT/HND-HKG-JFK-oDCA/PHL-oCAE-CLT-oJFK-oBOS-MIA-oLAX-oSFO-LAX-oLAS-LAX-IAH-ORD-oDTW-ORD-DOH-oCDG-LHR-DXB-LHR-oPEK-HKG-SIN-HND-oITM-HND-SIN-MEL-oCBR

In most cases, bag was among the first batch out. Though some ports took 30+ mins for anything to come out.

Is there a reason for this thread? Are you travelling QF?

QF, unlike BA can actually make priority baggage work and has several forms of priority.

As for tagging your own bags, I presume you mean NGCI? This should print the appropriate level of priority on the tag.

This I find funny. I have started a thread I am sure and posted on many just how substandard QF implementation of priority baggage is. On a QFF Advisory committee I advocated the poor implementation of a stated benefit long and loud enough to get removed (from the committee that is...!).

The substandard application is in my opinion the sole reason so many elites carry on only and so many once a year flyers carry 3 or 4 bags on if they can.

Last week alone landing in Adelaide (73H) - 28th bag off. Melbourne (73H) 19th bag off. NTL (via BNE) on crash8 - 21st bag off. Perth (A330) 47th bag off.

Statistically and allowing for J pax (I was in Y) if the priority baggage was adhered to wait would have been less than half on all bar PER (possibly)....

Intl landing in HKG or PVG tagging appears to be almost flawless. Back into Oz though......

QF indeed does have several forms of priority:
1) First on last off
2) In any order we damn well please
3) 1 priority, J or F for every 16 "common"

and so on..

For domestic self check in (even at the desks), a priority note comes out printed on the bag tag. There are no separate priority tags for self check-ins.

I fly to Australia ~6 times a year, granted on UA (mostly because oneworld before has lacked priority baggage or any kind of baggage benefits and i bring a lot of stuff to my aussie friends so ill take the 3 32kg bags on UA). My domestic legs are always on QF though since im AA Plat/OW Sapphire so this will be a nice change.

I know for AA/US (from a friend who is management there) they are constantly audited on the priority baggage delivery times so there is incentive there to actually get the bags to you in under 15 minutes. I'll be flying QF to aus via AA in Feb so i'll see if the interlining priority tags are honored at all.

Just curious does anyone know what the QF priority tags look like? Are they standardized to the oneworld (orange tag) look or are they their own special thing?

http://www.gayot.com/blog/wp-content...uggage-tag.jpg
http://wpcache.businessclass.se/wp-c...ag-800x300.jpg
http://aviation-news.net/wp-content/...-news-net1.jpg

side note: is there a reason BA has the tags but they dont honor other oneworld-tags?

QF are not as per OW standard. Perhaps are still using old stock? Perhaps QF sees no future in OW so isn't producing OW standard tags.

Yellow tags are F or OWE. Purple tags are "priority" for OWS and Business or OWE if there is no F cabin on the plane. And as per edy4eva, self serve tags are coded / printed with "priority"

AIUI, the main purpose of the BA tags is to stop the passenger asking for a priority tag; at least at LHR T5, the priority tag does nothing to get the bag into a priority can because the baggage system can read the bar codes but can't read the priority tag, and humans are not involved in routing the bag to the priority can.

BA only has one tag, no differentiation between OWE/F and OWS/J. I believe until recently BA never published priority baggae as an elite benefit or based on COS.

Whenever I have flown BA, an it's always in F, the tags have meant nothing, yet the crew are always able to pickup their bags before all the other pax. Of course crew bags should be priority, my point is that they can make priority work when they want to.

I don't check bags on domestic, but on QFi I have always had good priority baggage on QF with yellow F tags except ports where there is no F cabin and they don't use those tags.

No, BA does have a yellow first/Emerald tag as well as the orange one in the picture.This is usually a consequence of the fact that the crew tend to drop their bags late in the check-in process. By the same token, short connecting bags often come out very early. And priority for crew bags (if it actually exists as such) doesn't always do the job; there have been plenty of times when I've seen crew bags come out much later, often after many economy bags.

Qantas and priority baggage are not synonymous. It depends on the moon, tides and weather as to what happens at the carousel on arrival.
This is one of two worst(> or = to boarding ) aspects about traveling with Qantas as a priority pax from as as far back as I can recall.....'priority joke' is more an apt descriptor. Qantas is still at kindergarten level here compared with the likes of JAL, CX etc.

In all my years flying BA F, I have never seen these. That said my last BA flight was 2 years ago.

seat 4_d

It's been my experience that the word "priority" means nothing when I fly QF. Of course, I imagine baggage handling has been farmed out to some contractor or other who doesn't give a toss. It's no wonder so many people carry everything, including the kitchen sink, on board with them these days. However on my recent trip O/S, I found this is not just an Australian thing - Canada, UK, US, Ireland etc. - all the same.

And that just adds fuel to the fire...the continuous pathetic and ad nauseam response every time I complain...." we outsource our baggage handlers" as though it absolves Qantas of responsibility.

I don't care who it is outsourced to any 3 fingered monkey who can read can surely be taught that First (where available) comes before Business comes before Priority comes before nil, and measure them on it.

I reckon it is a concept I could teach my 8 year old inside of a week.....

The concept is easy - the issue is getting the baggage handlers to care, or even want to do it.

The whole concept of priority bags could be redundant if QF had a system like AS: http://www.alaskaair.com/content/tra...guarantee.aspx

Red Roo
 

Now that you have appeared for 2015 I really wish you would comment on these two areas, priority boarding and priority baggage. What strategies has Qantas in place to make these work?

You have the tags for the bags and the boards at the gates but the human factor keeps failing.

Small things in scheme of flying but pretty significant in making you stand out as a premium first rate carrier - namely to your premium pax!

I have been an elite flyer with Qantas for nearly 20 years and have yet to see these things happen consistently. As indicated/implied up-thread it seems to be hard to do if the work force has it ingrained not to support these 'benefits'.

Perhaps that ingrained attitude is alive and well here on FT too as evidenced by lack of a response:D

Qantas needs to work on this priority baggage thing.

a] they ignored my US airways priority tag on my LAX-SYD QF 12 flight. My bag was probably #200 on the belt. I even saw UA bags with star alliance priority tags coming out first... :-/

b] at the self check in kiosks, my tags do not print out priority despite me being emerald. The only way i got a tag was to do a bag check at a service desk. i know the system recognizes my status because my BP still prints FF EMERALD on it.

If you aren't checking in at a QF served port, with QF specific luggage tags then you won't receive priority. That said connections generally come out first, I thought?

Are you referrring to domestic kiosks in the second part? It would be a flaw if they didn't pick OW status for luggage priority.

Ha! Qantas pay lip service to this ...management say yes, but the ground baggage handlers generally don't care and enforcement seems non existant.

With 2 decades as Qantas elite I have decided that if any bags I have checked come out in the first 10% it's a statistical anomaly.

Couldn't agree more. This week past alone - PER-ADL 75th bag onto the belt. ADL-PER - 54th bag on the belt.

First 21 bags off in ADL didn't have any priority. First 16 in PER.

Given that between these cities there would be 12J and not more than 15 SG/WP people on board, how hard can it be to load and unload with priority?

So this isn't one of those routes where 80% of the checked baggage qualifies for priority handling?

statistically that would not even exist. On a 73H that would need 134 pax of priority to check a minimum of one bag.

:confused: Why not?

If there are 160 passengers on board, only 10 of them check one bag each, but 8 of those 10 passengers is entitled to priority baggage handling, then 80% of the checked baggage (8 bags out of 10) will qualify for priority handling.

Obviously, that wouldn't have been the case on your specific flights given the numbers you cite. But whenever this issue comes up I am reminded of that QF study about the percentage of priority baggage on some QF routes, which AIUI led to QF basically terminating priority bags on those routes because it makes no sense to spend any money on it if 80% of the bags have priority.

That would be a rare and unusual event. Statistically I was told less than 25% of pax on a flight carry FF status priority (including QC Bronze) (excluding SYD-MEL obviously). So leave the 12 in J to one side, it is unlikely that more than 30 people on the flights carry priority.

Those who travel regularly are more inclined to carry on (and the only reason I checked this time was because I had a case load of samples to take over with me, the case home was almost empty) because of the delays at the other end, however it is fair to say if priority baggage was adhered to then my bags should have been inside the first 25 off.

As I said when the first 20 bags off are not tagged Business or Priority, then it is clear that the message has not gotten through to the baggage handlers.

Hence my question about whether this was one of those routes where (statistically) 80% of the checked baggage qualifies for priority handling.

That is what QF found on some routes, although I don't know which ones. As you mention SYD-MEL, that seems like a possible candidate.

Priority Baggage
 

At MEL I don't think it matters which airline one uses, priority baggage never comes out in the first batch for me. At HKG, BKK, SGP & PVG my priority tagged bags always come out within the first dozen bags & I've done all of these airports including MEL one or more times every month since 2004. My conclusion is that there's a conspiracy by the baggage handlers at MEL to deliberately delay priority baggage as spite directed at the high status flyers ie good old Aussie toppling of tall poppies.

SYD-MEL / SYD-BNE would have a high priority pax rate, but not at 80% I would have thought.
Fact is that Qantas are crap at delivering on the benefit. I love travelling to China for example. Despite me OW status with a 95% certainty my bag will be inside the top 10

CBR! Lot's of statused PAX flying (and replenishing status but generally not earning Frequent Flyer points).

Well i flew QF93 today MEL-LAX and yet again my bags were not tagged at all. The BP says FF EMERALD AA####### but obviously their system must be so glitchy or its not programmed to deliver this oneworld benefit just yet.

Either way i was highly dissatisfied with my QF experience after being a longtime UA flyer to aus. I honestly should not have to wait 40 mins for my bags

problem with some australian ports is even if your bag is tagged priority, it doesn't seem to be treated as priority!

I fly over the ditch to MEL few times a year, OOL at least once a year and occasionally to SYD, and never had issues with priority baggage handling with NZ/VA. Always have Star Alliance or VA tags on properly at check-in and bags almost always there waiting for me, or less than 5-10 minutes wait at most once I clear immigration.

In fact I'd say my bags being >20 mins wait is the exception to the norm (once every 6-7 flights at most?)

Perhaps its something QF or OW in general just lacks discipline?

IME flying to/from MEL was always the issue with priority.
SYD T1 and non-MEL flights T3 my bags seemed to come out near the front.
MEL I have experienced long waits both international and domestic, in fact I really am not that big a fan of MEL (the airport, the city is a wonderful place to visit:)).
However I must admit I have generally stopped caring or counting as that could of course increase my agrivation levels about travelling.;) I just let it go as life is too short to let these minor things get to you....unless of course bags not coming out after 45 minutes, needing to transfer to a different terminal to check in for an international flight, that only departs 3 times a week....I am talking abut you IB and MAD:mad:

Out of curiosity, has there been any improvement regarding bag tagging over the past year?

I've had two personal experiences over the past few months.

1) Business. Checked in at NRT with JAL, arrived via Manila in SYD. Bag was priority tagged and was #16 on the belt.

2) First, but first flight in domestic J. Checked in at SYD, via MEL and LAX to JFK (AA on the last leg). Bags not tagged (had the useless Business class symbol printed on the tag itself, but that's it). Bags were some of the last ones onto the belt as could be expected.
Didn't help that the guy at check in was in a bit of a mood. Had a better experience with the security screener doing the 'extra' screening than with him.

If this matters to you then fly CX, SQ, EK ... they all seem to get F bags out very fast. QF and AA have always been hit or miss and it hasn't changed much despite it often being raised as an issue. On the plus side most airports have speeded up delivery time for all bags, so being last out isn't as bad as used to be. Priority baggage delivery just seems to be a low priority benefit for many airlines.