What's on an airline baggage tag? | Hacker News Reader

What's on an airline baggage tag?

jgc.org

68 pointsjgrahamc20 comments

I'm pretty sure that most luggage is lost when connecting at a busy airport, and there's some kind of glitch in the baggage handling at the airport. It's doesn't have to be a system-wide failure, just a single truck-driver running late, because a loading-team is two down because of the flu, and 100 bags miss their connections. Naturally, they are given lowest priority (when running behind, better get as many bags as possible on the right flight in time - whats it worth moving one bag that's already missed its flight, instead of one that has a chance of making it).

The bag lie around until evening when the pace slows down, and the remaining bags are routed to the relevant flight. But it might be a while until a there's flight in the relevant direction, and there might not be enough room on it.

At the destination airport, the bag waits around for a courier pickup, and that might take a while, because the airline wants to get as many bags as possible on the same pickup, because it's cheaper/easier.

I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure: At NO point during this process doesn't the airline know exactly where the bag is. Barcodes are not at fault here, RFID won't fix it -- the problem is overloaded systems, delayed flights and overly optimistic connection-times are.

They don't tell you this, because it's simply easier not to. If they telling you one thing, they'll soon end up rationalizing every single decision they take regarding every bag to everybody. It sucks but the alternative sucks more.

Upgrading baggage handling is expensive, and there are only the carriers, which in turn means the passagers, to pay for that.

If they knew where stuff was, they wouldn't lose it, something which happens so frequently that, last time I checked, I couldn't find anyone who would sell me luggage insurance over a very low amount.

Funny story: my uncle used to work for a company that sold baggage systems. They once lost a body, being sent home to its final resting place, for a few days. Ooops!

I can't speak for why you can't find insurance, but this site claims that 0.005% of all bags are permanently lost.

http://www.cheapflights.com/travel-tips/lost-baggage/

Could be US only stats? My bag was lost in Paris, flying with Air France (never again!).

Maybe you should buy some lottery tickets.

> If they knew where stuff was, they wouldn't lose it,

That doesn't follow. For one, knowing where some thing is doesn't imply that said thing is accessible.

Also, how do you know that they "lost" it? Lost suggests an accident. Suppose that they discarded it (which can be a rational thing to do). Do you really think that they'd admit that?

I know for a fact that at a certain point a lot of stuff got stolen at different airports in Italy. There was a big prosecution and publicity. So that's what happens to some of it: it got stolen and they no longer know where it is. If they new where it was, presumably they could tip off the police.

overly optimistic connection-times

Indeed. In almost all cases, it takes longer for a bag to move between planes than it does for a human to move between planes.

Or, for that matter, to get back onto the same plane. A couple of years ago, I was flying from Montreal to Vancouver, via Edmonton, with only 30 minutes scheduled to get between flights. It turned out that the same plane was being used for both the Montreal-Edmonton and the Edmonton-Vancouver flights; I made the connection, but my suitcase didn't -- it was taken off the plane along with all the others, went into the airport's baggage routing system, and didn't make it through in time to get back onto the plane.

I recently had the opposite experience. I was flying from BWI to MEM via Charlotte (which is what I get for buying tickets last minute.) MEM->CTL was delayed somewhat, leaving me with approximately 2 minutes to get from one terminal to another far away terminal.

I naturally didn't make the flight. While they were more than happy to accomodate me and get me onto the next CTL->BWI flight, I was worried about what was going to happen to my luggage, though it somehow beat me there.

"It turned out that the same plane was being used for both the Montreal-Edmonton and the Edmonton-Vancouver flights; I made the connection, but my suitcase didn't -- it was taken off the plane along with all the others, went into the airport's baggage routing system, and didn't make it through in time to get back onto the plane."

I can understand why they wouldn't bother optimizing such a rare special case. There are probably a long chain of procedures that would have to be made more complex to accomodate this.

Yet another case of choosing general scalability over local performance ;)

In addition there are so many variables that go into a flight. A common problem in the tropical airports is weight restricted flights. Once the temperature gets too high air density gets lower and the wings generate less lift. The captain has to decide between the passengers, cargo, and luggage. Flying out of MIA and BKK, whenever I heard the announcement the flight was weight restricted I knew some poor sap is definitely not picking up his bags at the other end. Flying non-rev and being the last to get checked in and boarded meant that sap was probably me.

Most bags is "lost" (delayed is the proper term) when the incoming aircraft is delayed, for any reason, and the remaining time is too short to unload it, sort it, (screen it), deliver it to the connecting flight in time. The connecting aircraft normally won't wait, unless there's substansial amount of bagggage. Delays cost moneyt. Baggage handlers have to prioritize by the number of bags that will "make it". Ofcourse, staffing levels etc. plays a big part in this.

The delayed ('lost') baggage is then moved to an area where it will be retagged for a later connection - this could be a direct flight to the destination, or be routed via up to (normally) two other airports, depending on the availability of flights. Sometimes it'll have to wait for the next day.

Normally, the baggage tag is registered with a "now onboard" message in a worldwide system called Worldtracer, which essentially is a huge Oracle database in Atlanta, with a rudimentary terminal input. If it's not (lack of training? lack of time?), then, no, the airline does not know where the bag is.

And RFID won't fix it.

This is just an observation, but at Stockholm airport (ARN), I've seen the baggage handlers scanning the tags on the bags as they pull them out of the airplane. This seems to indicate that there's at least some data on bag progress.

No, I don't think being transparent sucks. Rationalizing every single decision would be a good thing, but it would require passengers to accept the explanation that ultimately many things go wrong as a result of reducing cost.

"At this point I realized why people get paid at newspapers: it takes time and money to investigate things."

Umm yeah! I never understood how people get all up in arms when newspapers have decided relying in advertising isn't going to pay for good, local, investigative journalism. Personally, I have lost interest in most local papers because I can get the national, international stories from other places, including the source of the story. I keep paying for a copy of the Economist because every edition is worth it.

From what I have heard, sometimes it's profitable for airlines to offload your luggage in-favor of some cargo item, since the person sending that cargo is paying more than you are or is a large customer or that cargo has to be somewhere within 24 hours.

This way, the airlines make money. Even inn cases they have to pay out a per-day amount/ compensate you for lost luggage -- they come out ahead on the money they make via sending someone else's cargo.

I've seen it. From the gate waiting for boarding I saw cargo loaded in the plane. Later they announced that not all luggage 'could' be accommodated aboard and was to follow on the next plane.

I was once waiting for my flight and watching the activity out on the tarmac. A luggage cart dropped someone's suitcase, and it sat out there for at least an hour while the carts drove back and forth around it. Eventually, someone picked it up, but I'm sure the owner was long gone. Technically, I guess that doesn't count as "lost", but I wouldn't say that they set it aside until they had time to handle it.

I had almost same experience in Copenhagen Airport. Had to leave after half an hour and the suitcase was not picked up by passing trucks yet.

Edit: Now I remember; one cart-driver did stop, picked up the suitcase, placed it outside of the driveway, and moved on.

On a trip to Thailand in 2003 with friends, in Bangkok, my baggage was lost but after 4 hours or so, it turned up and I went to collect it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com