Most days I consider myself to be a travel expert. May 1, 2022, was not one of those days. Despite enjoying a fabulous flight in Qatar Airways’ 777 first class, the rest of our travel day wasn’t exactly smooth. I wrote about what happened in the Maldives, where we missed our flight due to my…
Continue reading: PSA: Don’t Wait At The Wrong Baggage Claim Belt
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It happend to me in Izmir. I have arrived Turkish Airlines from Istanbul, connecting from international flight. After I have wait at the baggage carosel for over 45 minutes airport employe asked me where I came from. He then escorted me to the “International Arrivals” where my bag with Priority Tags was going in laps around the carosel.
Prior to 9/11 I had a similar experience on a flight to Malaga, waited with other passengers for my bags after the last bag came out I went to the baggage reclaim rep, scanned my boarding card and was advised my bags were in the store as they were flown out on an earlier flight, so much for passengers must travel on the same plane as their checked in baggage!
Whilst I don't know who handles QR at DOH (I assume Qatar Aviation Services) or what their service level agreement with QR at DOH demands, in my experience the first F bag on belt should probably need to be there within 10 to 15 mins of the hold door opening. If the belt is still empty after 25 mins one should check they are at correct carousel and, assuming one is, ask a ground handling agent what is going on. Failure to get 1st bag on belt within 25 mins is pretty poor and would suggest something has gone wrong or the ground handler is incompetent. Unfortunately both happen too often.
This reminds me of an arrival in Newark on United also late at night. Waited and waited at baggage claim. Flight showed on monitor but nothing - belt was not even moving after more than an hour. For some reason I took a walk further down the baggage claim hall. There was a carousel full of bags with no flight information on the monitor and sure enough I saw my bag. Did they update monitor? No. Announce the change? No. So moral is - don’t trust the information monitors either.
We waited over 90 minutes for our bags at the Cabo airport. We had luckily booked a “VIP Arrival” and our escort stayed with us while we waited. Eventually she climbed through the conveyor belt door, got our bags, and passed them through while others continued to wait. Worth the extra $ for the VIP arrival services!
I quite appreciated that in some Chinese airports, there were employees who actually checked that your tag matched your bag.
This is as opposed to say, U.S. airports, where you can get an entirely new wardrobe just by strolling up to the terminal. In the U.S., security theater is taken very seriously.
Something similar happened to my last month.
Just flew into SIN on Singapore Airlines, so I assumed when the SQ app tells me my bag is coming out at belt 42, it would come out there.
Turns out nope, it came out on belt 44 and I wasted 30 minutes of my own time + my Blacklane driver.
Hi Ben, arriving into LHR from Dubai on Friday (13th) we had the alternative experience where the airport monitors told us the wrong belt number! Spent some time waiting barely registering that the crowd was diminishing despite no bags showing up until another passenger came by and told us the correct belt number!
I was working arrivals for a flight from Munich once and we were waiting for our belt to start spinning, and right next door was a plane load of passengers from a known drug source Caribbean nation. CBP was running every bag through their mobile X-ray van as it was unloaded, and hadn’t released the cleared bags yet, so they had been waiting a while. Our belt started buzzing and all of the Caribbean passengers came over, assuming the bags were theirs. One said “this is the [redacted] flight, right? These bags didn’t really come from Munich, did they?” I was like “um, yes, these bags really did come from Munich.” It’s one thing to wait at the wrong carousel. It’s another to be so closed minded as to assume that the first bags to arrive would be yours when the sign clearly states a different point of origin. Though in their defense the airline they flew in on was notorious for their staff becoming scarce when issues arose in international arrivals.
This article has no value. I haven’t checked a bag in in over a decade I’m not Jason Derulio. In other News Recession beer is actually not that bad. Head for the mountains of Busch . Beeeeeer.
We rarely checked bags but was forced to gate check since we were running late and were the last people to get on the plane in DFW. Arrived in SVQ and waited at baggage claim 2 for our bags. Nothing. Bags were coming out from our flights but not ours. After about 2 hours, we were getting ready to claim our lost bags. Turns out non-Schengen bags were at carousel 8. . First time I've seen baggages split up based on origins.
Had this kind of happen to me twice in ATL off of Delta flights. First time off a domestic flight, we were all waiting at the carousel that displayed our flight and flight number but our bags ended up coming out on a different carousel. Someone realized 22 minutes after (wasn't sure if this qualified for 2500 miles lol since the bag was technically already out within the 20 minute mark, just not at the correct carousel).
Another time came off a DL international flight from AMS. Had checked in 2 bags. One came on the correct carousel and the other came out on a completely different one. At least a Delta employee came and told us after we'd been waiting for some time that some bags were on a different belt.
My home airport is DCA, where bag carousel announcements have an implied "give or take 1" at the end of them. But in the middle of the night, the brain isn't gonna be fully awake 🙂
I’ve flown AF business and, at sfo, had them take my bag off the carousel before I even arrived (or anyone else for that matter) and sequester them in a non-sensical location. I waited for all the bags to be claimed before going to the claims office only to be shown the off-carousel location where the bags were taken. If they’re going to do that, I think they should post a sign or tell passengers
IAH Terminal C always says "Carousel 12" though it rarely is. The United app, pilot, flight attendants, arriving gate agent, and the boards all say "Carousel 12" but my wife and I always split up and check all other carousels.
We only check bags for beach and snow vacations.
Two days ago I came in on the evening flight AA CLT-LAX and had the most frustrating baggage experience of my life. We came into the Bradley Terminal, which is odd for a domestic AA flight. The app showed our bags would be at Terminal 5 baggage claim so I made the 20-30 minute walk over to T5, only for the baggage employee to state that our bags were at T4 and that she had just made an announcement to let everyone know. I heard no such announcement on my long trek and asked her why they just do not update the app? I received a blank stare in return and made my way back to T4, only to see their boards were down so I had no clue where my bags would come out. I approached the baggage staff there and was told a certain carousel. And there I waited for another 20-30 minutes for the bags to come out. All in all I was in three separate terminals at LAX to collect one checked bag.
My previous flight AA blew out the bottom of my new Monos bag, and 6 weeks later I cannot get a response from them on what they plan to do. Annoying AF.
Only time that happened to me was on a New Years Eve flight MUC to DUB with Air Lingus. Pretty much everything was screwed up on that flight. It took until about an hour before departure, until some grumpy guy showed up at the check-in desk. When we landed, they had nobody to operate a jet bridge, so they sent us on a 10 minute walk in freezing rain from the plane to the terminal, and then they placed the luggage on a different belt than the one they had announced. Over an hour wait. Shivering. Sick for a week after.
"I guess I should feel even worse for those on QR673, because even after 90 minutes the flight still showed as “Bags En Route,”
...Except you were on QR673. It was those on QR677 still waiting...
How about the baggage being delivered to the departures area? That's what's currently happening at the Melbourne (MLB) airport because the baggage claim area (and the whole airport) is being completely rebuilt as TUI relocates their Europe flights to MLB from SFB. The bags came out slowly with a staff member putting them in a pile from the belt also used for departures.
I was once flying from Lofoten back to Oslo on Norwegian and when we arrived waited until the baggage claim stopped and yet no bags. We were flying from a small airport and the only other flight was a SAS flight also to Oslo at around the same time. I figured they used the same ground crew and went to find that baggage claim. Sure enough, our bags were the last ones going around. So, not only did our bags come in on a different flight, but an altogether different airline.
Never rely on app. Stupid SQ app sent me over 20 msg for the same flight on baggage claim. What a nuisance
I rely on the airport baggage claim board and double check on the screen at the belt
Maybe the earlier flight was the only one on the board when you looked. Def a mistake but one that all of us could make. Just the other day i looked at what i thought was the baggage claim board and was confused where bag claim A4 was... Then i realized it was a departures board. We all do silly things sometimes
Maybe more airports should adopt the Mykonos system - hand appears through a hole in the wall and a finger signals left or right ...... absolutely no confusion!
i flew lufthansa first to miami a few weeks ago and was waiting forever for my luggage. turns out all the hon-tagged bags (hon&f) were already taken off the belt and stood right behind me.. i also had quite a bit of champagne on the flight so that might have contributed to the confusion
Its based on a risk analysis on whether its worth the airline paying someone to check tags. I think United checks tags at LAX, or at least sometimes does.
A plain-clothes officer at one of the NY airports (I forget which) stopped me to check my tag back in 2018ish. My bag was one of the last to come out. I pulled it off the carousel, and then didn't leave the baggage area for about 15 minutes while I took care of something on my phone. I could see how it looked suspicious--a luggage thief might do something like that to see if anyone would claim one of the last bags on the carousel.
This is why I prefer Air India's approach. You land at your destination and find out the ramp handlers at BOM didn't load your luggage because they got bribed to load extra cargo off the books. Then you join a scrum of people trying to all tell one disinterested employee their hotel contact info for when the bags arrive in "1 or 2 days".
If two flights from the same place on the same airline arrive in such a close time then they should have had them on the same belt. I am surprised you are the only one to make that mistake.