XCstud

That's interesting. IAH is/was my home airport so I don't have to re-check bags for continuing flights, but I have to walk right past it every time I exit after I clear customs. While they have 6 machines, I've never seen more than a couple of them in use at a time. It's kind of like how they have 50 or 60 different windows for immigration and they never have more than 20 (if that many) in use at any given time and I've never seen a bunch of bags stacked up like that either. I wonder if they had a couple large flights come in at the same time that overran them or what happened. Based on my (limited) experience, I would say that what you saw that day was probably the exception rather than the norm.

Bolding mine...

That would require the programmers to spend time and resources on non-revenue generating projects instead of tweaking the ToD offer algorithms!

halls120

I asked that question of DL last year, when I flew LFW-CDG-IAD, but my bag went LFW-CDG-YUL-CDG-IAD, but they laughed and said no.

exerda

I shared those exact sentiments with 1K Voice and was given a token gesture of miles and a promise to share the comments "with the appropriate management" or something to that effect. I suspect making the customer-facing bag tracing UI more up-to-date is not very high on UA's list of priorities.

invisible

Well, always worth to try...

FlyWorld

I think the truth is that it's a bit of both.

This "45 minutes since we landed" story is not new. That's something I've experienced typically, in many airports. Some of this is in UA's control. Some is airport control. Since CO decimated UA's systems, it's only gotten worse. But, 45 minutes is not something worth complaining about.

1KPath

While I agree with you completely, isn't it sad that, as customers, we now accept such a low standard of service form airlines? I grew up in this industry (nearly 60 years) and until only recently the airlines actually competed for customers based on their customer service. Now it is basically "take it or leave it" Sad, Sad, Sad!

FlyWorld

I agree with you that it's sad. Very sad. But as someone pointed out a few posts earlier in this thread, if we want to find the culprit, we need to look in the mirror, because, "we", overall, demand the cheapest of everything and reward airlines that try to provide a premium product with bankruptcy. Sure, there are a few here, and I count myself and assume you as well in this group, who are willing to pay for quality, but in large measure, most travel buyers care about nothing but price. Hence, the airlines are optimizing for the environment they find themselves in. Even the trashing of UA is part of this trend. All the destruction was done in favor of finding the cheapest solution, damn the consequences. And, $mi$ek and his regime were apparently given those marching orders by whoever gave them control, by whoever gave him a $14 million bonus based on achieving cost savings (aka synergies), by the BoD who allows this, by the shareholders who allow this, and by the stock market that rewards this. End of the day: These folks are just reacting to overall market forces. And, so we wait 45 minutes for our luggage and consider ourselves lucky when we get it at all.

burlax

Why would it be? It doesn't bring immediate incremental revenue.

NathanJ

My average wait is 30-45 minutes at IAH and it doesn't seem to matter whether it is a CRJ-200, 737, or a 767. I also do not understand why priority bags come out after regular bags. I have often thought about asking them to leave the priority tag off and see if I will get my bag sooner at IAH.

-Nathan

mjcewl1284

In my experience, IAD is about ~30-35 mins.
If you think that's bad, you'll be delighted with LAX's speed (or lack thereof)

jbsay

I've been checking bags to IAD/LAX on a regular basis for the past 5 yrs on UA mainline. I find both airports to be similarly poor in the baggage department, with at least 25m and sometimes 60m baggage waiting time after deplaning. However, given that IAD's baggage claim and its UA gates are much farther apart than their LAX counterparts, I suppose LAX might have slightly lower mean waits. On the other hand, IAD has much better seating in baggage claim than does LAX, and is quite a bit roomier in general than LAX's cramped UA baggage claim area.

5khours

Keep in mind a lot of this has to do with the airport and is outside of the carrier's control.

exerda

True, though I would expect that at hub airports, UA has a bit more control over the process than elsewhere, and given the amount of traffic they control at some of those airports, it would behoove UA to make sure the process is as smooth as possible.

I suspect most of the delays occur in aspects of the process which are completely under UA's control, too, but that's just a hunch.

SteerageFlyer

Sorry if this is posted elsewhere, but I did a search and didn't turn anything up.

Has anyone else had issues with the "priority" baggage handling? It used to be one of the perks I liked the most know that on a flight my bag would be one of the first off. Lately it seems that order is completely arbitrary though. Once in awhile I can understand a bag "hiding" but this happens routinely now.

It's not the biggest perk we get, but it is supposed to be a perk. If UA has abandoned caring about this then they should stop advertising it as a perk.

Sorry this was a bit of a rant, but I wanted to hear if anyone else had similar experiences.

UAPremExecflyer

Well-known issue that goes back many years.
Try this thread and related.