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Delayed Baggage: How does this happen?


rkacruiser
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Itinerary:  YVR-MSP-DAY

 

Two bags were checked at YVR, taken to the luggage drop-off area and I saw they went up the conveyor belt to wherever.  Arriving at DAY, one bag wasn't on my flight.  (Plenty of time for it to make the flight:  3 hours before flight time.)  Missing bag claim was filed and I was told I should receive some news the next day.  The next day, no news whatsoever.  The next day, Delta's  luggage website was reporting my bag en-route as I was inquiring:  YVR-SLC-DTW-DAY.  Early the next morning (1:25 A. M.) it joined it's "big brother" at its home. 

 

Inspecting the bag, the original luggage check tag was still applied minus the Sky Priority sticker applied at check-in.  The bar code label that comes with the original tag and is applied to the bag was missing.  Additional routing tags had been applied, all labeled RUSH.  Was the lack of that bar code label the reason my bag missed my flight in Vancouver?  The bag had not been opened, it was in the same condition as when it was checked in, two personal address tags were applied, and the most fragile piece of identification--the Disembarkation Group Color/Number from Coral Princess was still attached to a handle(!).

 

I am asking a question that probably has no answer.  Any thoughts or explanations from other CC fliers?  

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Perhaps this will explain it.

 

Once upon a time, a passenger travelling to NYC checked in and told the airline person to check 

-This bag to LA.

-This bag to DFW and

-This bag to FFL.

The Airline Person said: "Sir, we can't do that."

The passenger replied: "I don't see why not, you did it last week."

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So sorry that one of your bags was delayed. The good part is that not only did it eventually turn up but it happened on your home bound trip. We fly Delta almost exclusively but rarely check a bag. However, the few times that we have done so,  we have tracked the bags via the Delta Ap and are always relieved to see the “bag is on the plane” show up. Not sure what I can do if we take off and I haven’t gotten that message and hopefully I won’t ever have to find out!

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Your Coral Princess tag might actually be the culprit. It might have been scanned by the electronic reader so you are probably lucky you got your luggage.

When cruising do not put your ship tags on before you check in your luggage or before you check in for your return flights. The only exception is using a cruise air program with baggage transfer service.

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13 hours ago, rkacruiser said:

Itinerary:  YVR-MSP-DAY...The next day, Delta's  luggage website was reporting my bag en-route as I was inquiring:  YVR-SLC-DTW-DAY.  Early the next morning (1:25 A. M.) it joined it's "big brother" at its home. 

 

 Any thoughts or explanations from other CC fliers?  

 

Yes, sometimes bags don't make it.  Given the thousands of of bags that get checked every day, it's understandable that sometimes a bag just doesn't make it.  Maybe the flight had a weights and balances issue and had to offload some bags and reroute them.  Maybe the plane had a heavy cargo load (airlines often transport commercial cargo) and some bags had to be offloaded and rerouted.  Maybe your bag fell or got knocked off the conveyor somewhere and it wasn't noticed until it was too late.  Maybe a human made a mistake and it ended up on the wrong plane.  You got your bag back the next day so I'd consider that a win.  I'm a Delta frequent flyer and over the years have probably had a bag not make it half a dozen times.  It's always been delivered to my home or hotel later that day or the next, depending on the flight arrival time.   (Only had one time when it got lost for a couple of weeks but that was at CDG and Air France was at fault.).  The possibility of a delayed bag is a big reason I don't generally fly into a cruise the same day as embarkation. 

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So sorry that one of your bags was delayed. The good part is that not only did it eventually turn up but it happened on your home bound trip. We fly Delta almost exclusively but rarely check a bag. However, the few times that we have done so,  we have tracked the bags via the Delta Ap and are always relieved to see the “bag is on the plane” show up. Not sure what I can do if we take off and I haven’t gotten that message and hopefully I won’t ever have to find out!


I saw that "the bag is on the plane" message last month, flying SDF-MSP-LAS on Delta. Didn't think about it again. As soon as we landed at LAS, I took my phone out of airplane mode, and immediately got an email directing us to the baggage claim office. Our bags had been put on an earlier flight, and had beaten us to Vegas.

So yeah, your bag may be "on the plane", but no guarantee it's on the same plane you're on. Lol
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24 minutes ago, hapster85 said:

I saw that "the bag is on the plane" message last month, flying SDF-MSP-LAS on Delta. Didn't think about it again. As soon as we landed at LAS, I took my phone out of airplane mode, and immediately got an email directing us to the baggage claim office. Our bags had been put on an earlier flight, and had beaten us to Vegas.

So yeah, your bag may be "on the plane", but no guarantee it's on the same plane you're on. Lol

 

 

If you had looked a bit closer, it tells what flight number the bag is on.  So, if you assumed it was with you, you were mistaken.  It was showing the earlier flight all along.

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I've had a few weird things happen to my bags over the years. Perhaps the "funniest" was when my wife and I were flying to see her family in North Africa, and we each had a bag plus we had a bag full of gifts and other things to bring from the US. We misconnected in Madrid and took a flight later that night on Royal Air Maroc (instead of Iberia). The bag of gifts arrived. That's it. Two days later, mine came. Two days after that, hers came. You could tell by the faded stickers on the bag that it had probably just been sitting in the Spanish sun for four days, despite the 1x or 2x daily MAD-RAK flights each of those days. I have no idea why it took so long, but it sure did.

 

I've also ended up with a few hand-written baggage tags for whatever reason...checked the bag in with a "normal" tag, picked it up with a hand-written one. Once on-time, once the next day (and re-routed via an entirely different country).

 

Also flew in to OKC once and my bag came down the carousel with no tags on it whatsoever. I always laugh that Southwest just grabbed it off the plane in the next city (since the plane was going on to at least a few other cities, with the same flight number) and hoped I was there. I was.

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FlyerTalker,

 

Unless I am mistaken, after 9/11, one's luggage had to be on the same plane as the passenger.  Then, it didn't for some reason.  (I had luggage beat me on a DAY-ATL-FLL itinerary once because I checked in a few minutes before a DAY-ATL flight was to leave, but it was not my flight.)  That still seems to be true; luggage can travel without its owner being on the plane.  Was this a change of FAA/TSA/? Agency rules or what?

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9 hours ago, waterbug123 said:

The possibility of a delayed bag is a big reason I don't generally fly into a cruise the same day as embarkation. 

 

That's my thinking as well.  Along with the possibility of delayed or canceled flights that would keep me from timely arrival for sailing on my cruise.

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7 minutes ago, rkacruiser said:

FlyerTalker,

 

Unless I am mistaken, after 9/11, one's luggage had to be on the same plane as the passenger.  Then, it didn't for some reason.  (I had luggage beat me on a DAY-ATL-FLL itinerary once because I checked in a few minutes before a DAY-ATL flight was to leave, but it was not my flight.)  That still seems to be true; luggage can travel without its owner being on the plane.  Was this a change of FAA/TSA/? Agency rules or what?

 

Policies basically state that a passenger cannot choose to fly separately from their bag, for somewhat obvious reasons. But, if the bag ends up on a different flight by the airline's choice, that's okay. Obviously, the vast majority of the time, the person and bag fly on the same flight...but sometimes, they do end up on different flights (sometimes earlier, sometimes later) and that's okay from a security standpoint as long as it wasn't the passenger who chose to be separated.

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17 hours ago, alcpa1 said:

Your Coral Princess tag might actually be the culprit. It might have been scanned by the electronic reader so you are probably lucky you got your luggage.

When cruising do not put your ship tags on before you check in your luggage or before you check in for your return flights. The only exception is using a cruise air program with baggage transfer service.

 

I have wondered about whether the Coral Princess tag might have been the initial cause.  Yet, the bag that arrived, arrived with the Princess tag still attached.  What was missing on the delayed bag was the bar code sticker from the original Delta luggage tag.

 

I know that removing all extraneous luggage tags before checking a bag is the proper thing to do.  And, I have always done so.  Because I was using wheelchair assist for the first time, my check-in and luggage drop experience was different from what I have experienced in the past.  I now know better and need to require the Agent helping me to "slow down" this process.  

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4 minutes ago, Zach1213 said:

 

Policies basically state that a passenger cannot choose to fly separately from their bag, for somewhat obvious reasons. But, if the bag ends up on a different flight by the airline's choice, that's okay. Obviously, the vast majority of the time, the person and bag fly on the same flight...but sometimes, they do end up on different flights (sometimes earlier, sometimes later) and that's okay from a security standpoint as long as it wasn't the passenger who chose to be separated.

 

Thanks for the explanation, Zach1213.

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4 minutes ago, rkacruiser said:

 

I have wondered about whether the Coral Princess tag might have been the initial cause.  Yet, the bag that arrived, arrived with the Princess tag still attached. 

 

Meh, one look at the baggage carousel at MIA or FLL and you'll see a billion bags come out with cruise tags already on them...without issue.

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If you had looked a bit closer, it tells what flight number the bag is on.  So, if you assumed it was with you, you were mistaken.  It was showing the earlier flight all along.
Looking back, I don't think I checked bag status in MSP, but I think that's where it happened. The timing made it highly unlikely that our bags made it onto an earlier flight out of SDF.
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Passenger luggage can also be left behind due to priority cargo such as the US Mail, certain perishable goods, and human remains.  Sometimes it's just the luck of the draw.  

 

When I check, I always make sure that my bags are tagged with the right destination and flights to arrive with me.

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3 hours ago, hapster85 said:


 

 


I saw that "the bag is on the plane" message last month, flying SDF-MSP-LAS on Delta. Didn't think about it again. As soon as we landed at LAS, I took my phone out of airplane mode, and immediately got an email directing us to the baggage claim office. Our bags had been put on an earlier flight, and had beaten us to Vegas.

So yeah, your bag may be "on the plane", but no guarantee it's on the same plane you're on. Lol

 

Pretty easy to tell which plane (flight) it’s on. However, it’s good that Delta kept track of the bag and made sure you were notified where to pick it up. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/11/2019 at 9:18 PM, alcpa1 said:

Your Coral Princess tag might actually be the culprit. It might have been scanned by the electronic reader so you are probably lucky you got your luggage.

When cruising do not put your ship tags on before you check in your luggage or before you check in for your return flights. The only exception is using a cruise air program with baggage transfer service.

Yep.  Remove all old or unnecessary bag tags.  They only cause confusion at TSA screening machinery and baggage make-up (sorting) areas for the airlines.

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On 8/23/2019 at 8:21 AM, Joseph2017China said:

Every once in a while you read on the news that a "person" was on the wrong plane.  So if a person can be on the wrong plane, imagine your luggage.


About 10 years ago my husband was next to a young woman (college aged) on a flight who somehow realized about halfway through it that she was on the wrong flight.  She was supposed to be going somewhere in the mid-west and was on a non-stop from Newark to Orlando.

 

How she got on board is my first question, but how the "soul count" between the FA's and passenger manifest didn't match and they took off anyhow is an even bigger one.  There were a few people with some explaining to do on that one.

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