YVR Cockroach

Just wondering if priority is printed on baggage tags printed at the kiosk for PE or does one have to go to a counter?

CanuckFlyHigh

IT says priority on the Kiosk tabs. In 200 flights, I am not sure I have seen my bags come out priority more than twice.

V1213

While the priority tags that get added at staffed check-in are easier to see (colour and shape) than the printed "PRIORITY" on a kiosk bag tag, I'm not sure that either actually leads to priority bag delivery. It's almost like it's a fake benefit...

FlyerJ

Agree with the above.

With WestJet, “priority” seems to make little to no difference in when your bag arrives at the carrousel.

Admittedly I have no recent experience with WestJet — because delivery times for bags became so horrendously bad at YYC that I have simply stopped checking bags. It takes me about 30 minutes to get from YYC to my house, which means I could get home and be sitting in my living room well before bags from my flight even start coming down the belt to the carrousel.

With other airlines - like all Star Alliance carriers, I was told - the priority treatment is determined by the bar code on the tag routing the bag through airport baggage systems … not by any human watching for neon coloured tags. The tags, it would seem, are just for show.

Adam Smith

And yet the AC forum is full of posts about how meaningless "priority" baggage is - your opening comment could easily be repurposed: "With WestJetAir Canada, “priority” seems to make little to no difference in when your bag arrives at the carrousel."

I've also had similarly slow "priority" bags on UA and DL. One time DL didn't even bother to load my "priority" skis and sent them YYC-PDX-SLC-JAC instead of YYC-SLC-JAC (they got there, but about 10 hours late) because they decided other people's ski bags were more important.

So I don't know that WS is really any worse in this respect.

Sopwith

I use an AC priority tag as a bookmark since that seems to be all it’s worth.

arf04

Never say never… the first bags at LHR the other day were all priority bags, mine included. Delivery was incredibly quick as well.

CanuckFlyHigh

Some of the highest AIF in the country, and absolutely the slowest baggage in the entire country. Just pathetic, YYC. We waited 65 minutes last week.

FlyerJ

Wow. That's disappointing to hear. I'd hoped that it would get better -- but that's pretty consistent with my 2023 baggage experiences with WestJet at YYC.

How much of the slow bags-to-carrousel time is due to
- YYC Airport Authority and their systems (i.e. the conveyer belts and systems within the building), vs
- WestJet's ground handlers who unload and put bags into that YYC system (I believe still outsourced at YYC to a third party, but a new third party??), vs
- screening by CBSA for inbound international flights (almost all of my YYC experiences were inbound international flights)?

Is one of these primarily at fault? Or all of them?

It's not an everywhere issue. I've checked bags southbound (on other airlines) into both 'spoke cities' and into major U.S. hubs. Baggage works better at almost every U.S. airport. I've checked bags from the U.S. into YYC on airlines other-than-WestJet ... and bag delivery times at YYC have varied, but have sometimes been equally awful. Is it the building? The fact that every airline uses third party agents for ground services? CBSA? All of it??!?

YXUFlyboy

YYC is by far one of the worse airports in the western world for baggage. I've cleared LAX, NRT, HND and SIN with baggage in minutes (with priority tags). YYC is always the longest wait, priority or not, 30-45 minutes, no matter what.

If you can't even deliver priority in your hub - well...