USC_FT@LAX

I think that the ones that remained included those making extra money on the side by stealing from passenger bags.

vkng

My wife and I were flying back ORD-ATL a few days before the new year, and checked 8 items between the two of us. 2 made it, the other 6 which the TA said she would personally take to another belt didn't make it until the next day. The conveyor behind the counter was broken so they were moving bags to another belt constantly, and ours got lost in the shuffle.

It was a direct flight. They had many hours to notice them in a corner and say "hey, these have been just sitting here, maybe I should scan them." Nope. They weren't located in the system until about 12 hours later.

The good news out of this is that we didn't need any of them immediately as we were going home, and we didn't have to drag 8 pieces of luggage with us to the car as it was all delivered to us at our front door.

sfogate

Are these photos from the check in lobby? I do believe that the TSA man the xray scanning machines and not CO. It also appears that the bags are lined up to be scanned and are not just thrown around the floor.

FlyWorld

No, this is not the check-in lobby.

This is the transfer area. After clearing customs on arrival at IAH, this is the area where luggage is dumped while awaiting transfer.

I have done transfers like this at sUA stations such as ORD and IAD, and I have never experienced anything like this. In those cases, you clear customs, then immediately toss luggage onto a conveyor belt, and it's then sucked into the airport baggage system. No waiting. No lines. No piles of stuff thrown all around.

What I experienced at sCO IAH is fundamentally different, and a lot worse, than anything I have experienced at an sUA station.

There were six stations, and there was a lot of luggage thrown around the floor in addition to that neat line which is in one of my photos.

I am always nervous about taking too many photos at an airport so I didn't take the time to carefully compose a series of photographs that properly documents the overall extent of the chaos there.

When we arrived, we were told to dump our bags on the floor at the front of one of those long lines. So, it does not appear those are orderly queues of luggage waiting to be scanned, else they would have told us to dump our luggage at the end of the queue. No?

And, anyway, why such long lines? Why only 2 of 6 stations staffed? For someone with a tight connection, the sitting time of that luggage is likely the difference between successful luggage transfer and a misconnect.

star_world

I've transferred international->domestic many, many times at IAH (and EWR, FWIW) and my bags have *always* gone onto a conveyor belt. There is no way I would leave them out on the floor and hope for the best.

What you've described above doesn't sound like the normal operation at IAH at all. I'm sure others can confirm based on their experience.

exerda

We ran into a bag issue at SFO on an international transfer in December; the guy taking the re-checked bags was so backed up that he stopped taking bags right after ours (didn't see what happened to the next several pax--just that he yelled to the guy checking BPs not to let anyone else into the line). He had a pile of bags to deal with by that time.

Our bags of course didn't make the 2+ hour connection, even though we had time to go to the UC after dropping them off, reclearing security, etc. One of the several times in the past 9 months I've had the joy of waiting around for a delivery driver...

gailwynand

For what it's worth I've seen some improvement in bag handling at IAD in the past few months, at least for international flights. My past two international flights (in November and earlier this month) have had less than 5 minutes wait after clearing Global Entry and taking a quick bathroom break. Can't speak for domestic.

FlyWorld

Well, now, this is mystifying. We have disagreed on countless topics, most of which are a matter of opinion and hence open to debate.

This is a matter of fact. I am describing what actually happened to me and all others I flew with at IAH, and I backed it up with two photos.

Assuming that you also flew sCO, and assuming there is only one place to pick up bags and clear through customs at IAH, and given that what I photographed is the scene right after clearing customs, I don't understand how your experience could differ from mine? Unless, you're saying that you did go to the same area, but when you were there, the machines were staffed with agents, and there were no bags laying around and that when you were there, you could walk up to an agent in front of a machine and then put your bag into the machine?

Nonetheless, I am reporting what happened, this is fundamentally different to all the conjecture we debate regularly.

Pingtung

Consider yourself lucky then, I waited 30 minutes recently after clearing Global Entry before they finally started loading them onto the belt. IAD can be quick, but aren't reliably so.

sfogate

I can only direct you to contact the TSA about why only 2 of 6 stations were manned.

I also know that the scanners can only handle so many bags and the agents have to create piles of bags since those clearing customs are moving faster than the system (TSA) can run the reboarding belt.

I'm sure it's not just a sCO thing. I remember working the reboarding belt in HNL before the days of mandatory bag scanning and our work area was tiny and we always had huge piles of carts/bags waiting to be thrown on the reboarding belt. This area was not designed or controlled by any airline and every airline using this area had 'issues'.

star_world

It's not mystifying at all. As I said above, what you describe and showed photos of looks nothing like the typical operation I've experienced countless times at IAH, which is why I made that comment. I'm not doubting your experience in the slightest, but rather hypothesising that something may have been wrong that day.

I've always been able to drop my bags onto the conveyor belt without waiting in a queue or speaking with an agent at all, unless I had to change my connecting flight for some reason. It has never been a memorable experience for me, which is why I'm struggling to remember anything more substantial than what I just said - I can categorically say that my bags never ended up in a long queue of bags like you show above though.

JBEagle1000G

I'm not surprised.
I was checking into a hotel in Newton, MA during the summer and there was a row of bags covering the wall behind the desk. All UA bags but one Delta and one SW bag.
Large UA market share or dispproportial mishandling of baggage?
IDK

jetaway96

Those luggages could be belong to those passengers who chose the baggage delivery services that United offers.

exerda

Domestic has been a nightmare for me. No wait less than 35 minutes, with the average around 50-55 minutes. On several, a full load of non-priority-tagged bags came out first; the one time I didn't have a priority tag (agent in SGU claimed they didn't have any), of course, the priority bags did indeed arrive first. Sigh.

Coming back from FL earlier this month, we waited an hour but at least got the bags. Returning from SFO (off an international connection) in December, along with returning from LAX and SFO on red-eyes in late November yielded lost bags for me.

I've eventually gotten all of my bags back--so far, UA hasn't completely lost one, though this past non-trip they came close--but I can't believe how poor the baggage handling has become, and the baggage system in general.

jbsay

Since IAD baggage claim always takes 30min or much longer, whenever I arrive in IAD with a checked bag, if it's not too late I always grab a burger at Wendy's and/or a drink at the bar. It sure beats waiting by baggage claim for half an hour. Is there a way to check on the web when a particular IAD arriving flight's bags have finally reached baggage claim?