Why does Priority Baggage go so wrong?

Over many years of travelling I've found Priority Baggage handling to be very hit or miss. Some of the Asian carriers get it right and my experience of Jet Airways in the UK and India is they also get it right.

My LGW-BGI flight on 7 Dec is a prime example. The baggage was correctly tagged at "normal" i.e. not Twilight, check-in.

On arrival BGI the luggage took a long time to begin coming off. The first bags were not tagged at all. After a while PE luggage came through but no sign of UC bags. Then a large number of non-tagged bags came through. The problem was not isolated to our group as I could see many f our fellow UC pax standing waiting.

Eventually after most other pax had collected their bags the UC bags came through.

I was a bit annoyed by this but there was no sign of a VS representative to complain to.

On arrival back at LGW on 18/12 the UC bags were on the carousel by the time we had cleared Immigration. ^) ^)

Sounds like either the baggage bins were loaded / unloaded / delivered to the baggage hall in the wrong order on your outbound flight.

If all goes as it should, then the last baggage bin(s) to be loaded (so first off) should be the one(s) containing UC/PE/Transfer pax bags - so these are delivered to the baggage hall first.

I too have had mixed experiences of priority baggage on VS. Generally, when flying from MAN to MCO, the Upper bags have been on the carousel within minutes of us clearing immigration. Flying back to MAN, it's a bit hit and miss - sometimes the bags are first off, sometimes last (Downtown Disney check-in possibly plays a part here). Over at JFK, we have waited over half an hour for ANY bags to appear off the flight - and we arrived in good weather to an empty terminal 4 too (through immigration in minutes), so a lot of it is seemingly hit and miss.

Will see what the baggage handling is like again on the MAN-MCO run in a couple of weeks. Given the loads on both of the flights at the moment, there is no excuse for anything but very quick baggage for everyone on the flight.

Given the number of pax that qualify for some sort of 'priority' baggage its no wonder that it goes wrong.

On a full flight getting on for 25-30% of pax will 'qualify' for priority baggage just becase they are in PE or UC let alone any Golds in economy who also qualify.

All it takes is for the priority baggage bin(s) to be loaded out of sequence and when it comes to unloading at the other end I really can't see the baggage handlers searching out a priority bin if its not first off. They will simply want to unload as soon as they can.

The only 'tag' on a bag that matters is in the bar code that the luggage system reads not any other label. I get the impression that attaching a UC (or 1st class label on other airlines) is more for show than any practical purpose.

[honey lamb]

I agree with the others. It depends on the loading of the bins and as Tonty says, there could be Golds flying in economy who qualify for priority.

Having said that, earlier this year my sister, nephew and myself flew DUR-JNB-LHR. We checked in together and their bags were tagged through to LHR (mine was tagged on to ORK) and we were flying UC. My nephew's came out pretty quickly but my sister's was among the last five bags through ?|

I've also travelled in UC with a friend before now, and his two bags both arrived just fine (and quickly) whereas my two didn't even make the flight. So go figure what they were up to.
At least it saved me lugging them home (no CDC)

I've only really had this issue after Downtown Disney checkin. Was sat in Y in the exit row seats so was first off the plane, powered through the terminal, through IRIS and then had to wait for about 30 mins for my 'UC' tagged bags to eventually come out!

Though admittedly (in my limited experience with them) BA seem worse- my first flight in Club World to DXB my bag was literally the last one off the plane!! I thought it had been lost.

Have had the reverse... some years ago flew Aer Lingus to JFK. Our transfer flight from NCL came in at the last possible moment for the connection. And our bags were the first ones off the plane and we were in Y.... Got a lot of unfriendly stares from the others as we headed out of the baggage hall...

[mitchja]

VS are particularly bad at getting priority baggage right for AU holders not flying in Upper.

It's usually worse when you travel from out-stations into London, but can also be bad from LHR too. For example, when I flew to HKG in Y as an AU a few years ago, my bag was second to last off the flight !

At LHR your bags are *supposed* to be automatically sorted and loaded into the correct bins using the bar code, but I really don't think this works as my HKG flight proved.

Clearly baggage handlers are not doing their job properly as they are not loading priority bags into the Upper Class bin.

VS should be using the system *A use where a bright fluorescent 'Priority' card is stuck between your baggage label. Priority bags does seem to work with all the *A carriers I've used.

Don't forget as well that VS out-source their baggage handling to another company so we really can't expect too much from them.

[honey lamb]

Have had the reverse... some years ago flew Aer Lingus to JFK. Our transfer flight from NCL came in at the last possible moment for the connection. And our bags were the first ones off the plane and we were in Y.... Got a lot of unfriendly stares from the others as we headed out of the baggage hall...

All transfer bags go into one bin at Aer Lingus and it's the last bin loaded. If my bags are through-checked to Cork they're always among the first to come off and all the others have tags indicating that they have transferred at LHR or wherever.

HL,

All transfer bags go into one bin at Aer Lingus and it's the last bin loaded. If my bags are through-checked to Cork they're always among the first to come off and all the others have tags indicating that they have transferred at LHR or wherever.

We thought that might be the case - alas Aer Lingus don't fly to NCL any longer (or so I believe) - I really enjoyed the routing we took that trip. Quite apposite to as we were going to visit some Irish American friends of ours.

Anyway - my last experience of priority luggage at IAD was coming into the baggage hall and finding all the bags from the flight piled up in one corner ... due to the length of time we were standing in immigration. Worked on the way back very well.