Not always the case. Last week, non-stop ORD-CVG, checked in 2 hours beforehand. No bag in CVG until 4 hours after the next flight arrived.

Agreed. Typically intra-Asia flights those bags show up first (except in India, where all bags are thrown randomly. For flights to India I ask the red tag not be applied).

In the US, it's a mixed bag experience.

I had BOTH my red-tagged checked bags arrive at ICN while my UA flight was to SIN a couple years ago. But I'm sure they came out early on in ICN! (they were mishandled in NRT apparently).

Er - I fly probably once a month out of India - MAA specifically, both int'l and domestic. Being *G and skyteam plat (which also gets me priority tags on 9W), I get my baggage tagged priority each time.

Priority tags do get honored in my experience - and it makes all the difference in a flight that arrives close to midnight, after which I have to wait quite some time to clear immigration (less time as I usually ask for and get an exit row on my way back).

That little red strip of paper makes all the difference for me between five to ten minutes and over half an hour or more (guess how long it takes to unload a packed 744, and pass all the baggage through a scanner so that the customs people can make chalk marks on heavy luggage that has expensive stuff packed into it --> these serve to alert the customs people that there's something to declare in those bags).

All my flights to India on SQ have gotten bags prioritized as expected. On TG and UL (I know its not *A) to India, priority bags have come out randomly (sometimes all at the end) - I think it depends on whether the airline you're flying has enforced priority baggage handling with its local/contracted ground staff at the destination.

My "randomization" experience has occured on SQ flights. Though being in Y by the time I get to the baggage claim 80% of the bags are on the belt already...

...what i dislike is some guy decides to just pull bags off the belt and line them up on the side.

I'm usually in Y as well, but I usually make it to baggage claim just as the bags are coming out. And yeah, that guy usually pulls priority bags off the belt if they come around unclaimed again...

My one only worked once at AKL with QF, then never worked with CX flights. Do people really care about the RED tag at the airport baggage handing place?

It's all classes, even economy on TG that you get priority tags with even Silver. Gold gets you a higher priority tag, but even with just the Silver priority, my luggage has always been among the very first out on all my TG flights. I don't normally have checked luggage, but when I do, I love that about TG as it save me considerable time.

By any chance, anyone has images of these tags? ^