Baggage to wrong carousel, no anouncements
 

Three weeks ago at LGA: TV monitors showed one carousel, but the bags started coming out at another. Luckily, that other carousel was right next to the first, so everyone noticed this and just moved over. This said, there were no announcement from UA, and no changes were made to the airport monitors that still showed the incorrect carousel number even as I was leaving the airport with my bags.

Two weeks ago at BOS: Similar occurrence.

Early this week at IAH. Similar, only worse. Monitors showed Carousel 12. Waited by 12 for 40 minutes till the belt stopped. I then went inside the UA baggage office where I was treated with indifference (at best). I managed to convince someone to check their own internal computers. She did, and told me, very matter of fact "it's coming out at 2." I pointed out that the airport monitors continue to show 12. The response was: "just go to 2." I went, and my bag was there, along with that of other pax from the same flight. I picked up the bag and left. The airport monitor continued to show Carousel 12. And, the TV monitor right above carousel 12 continued to show my flight. There were also no announcement of the change. Undoubtedly this cost me 15-20 min plus a lot of aggravation.

I don't mind when this happens from time to time, but the frequency in recent weeks has been alarmingly high. Maybe I was just plain unlucky, or maybe this is a new trend designed to make sure pax can solve a puzzle after each flight, to keep their brain active. :-) Could it even be intentional let down by the UA workers to make life harder for mgmt? Whatever the reason, they need to fix it.

I wrote to customer care about it. If anyone else experiences this, I would recommend you write as well. Maybe this way they will listen...

I wrote them about a similar frustrating practice -- when the baggage contractor removes bags from the belt and puts them off to the side without any notice or announcements... well before it is reasonable to have expected them to do this.

People are left waiting for 30 minutes thinking their bags are still to come out only to find that they've been removed already. An incredible, stupid waste of people's time that could have been remedied by a single announcement.

In the grand scheme of things, this is about a .5 on a 1-10 scale.

Happened to me at LHR a few months back. I got though it. No biggie.

Yeah this happens on OALs too. With WN (as with UA) I've gotten in the habit of watching other carousels when bags from my flight don't timely appear on the designated carousel.