Baggage left behind

sheramber

Traffic control slots are strictly adhered to . 

If a plane is not available at their allocated time they lose it. They cannot turn up 25 minutes later and take off. Missing their slot can cause delays to a plane load of people. 

justice4521

eskbanker said:

You may consider it obvious but some passengers, especially those on their way home, would probably prefer to travel asap even if it means their bags don't keep up, and in any case, if you'd flown the next day, you'd still have had four days at your destination without your luggage as well as having arrived late!

Your assertion that it's a deliberate cost reduction ploy is basically no less speculative than OP's view that it's an actual business model - perhaps understandable to be cynical when mucked about but that doesn't actually prove anything....

I appreciate that passengers on a flight back home could be fine without their bag for 5 days. If flying for a holiday or business trip, however, it could be disastrous to be stuck without clothes etc. for 5 days. As a personal choice, I would never leave a country while my bags are left behind.

I wouldn't call it a business model but my situation has showed me that an airline can knowingly leave your bags behind and not be held accountable for the decision, because it falls between EU Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 and the Montreal Convention.

Random bag delays / losses happen all the time. However, if the airline has actively decided to leave the baggage behind, there needs to be some additional accountability. 

I think what was appropriate is, during the transfer, for the airline to ask me if I wanted to stay behind in Warsaw (because there is no time for a bag transfer) or if I wanted to fly without my bag (so they could send it on the next flight). Instead, the airline made the decision themselves.

Another comment mentioned that I should have carried my medicine in my my cabin bag. My medicine happened to be liquid and more than 100ml, so that wasn't an option.

My case isn't just a simple case of a bag being delayed, which would have been understandable. Its the case of an airline knowingly leaving it behind and not bothering to send it to me for 5 days (now, if I was to speculate, I'd say that was either out of laziness or to actually make it appear as if it was lost. I say this because other passengers on the identical route had the same issue. For 5 days, the airline even refused to tell me my bag had arrived in Warsaw.).

zagfles

Liquid medication over 100ml is allowed in cabin baggage. See What items can I travel with and which are restricted | UK Civil Aviation Authority If the medication is essential there's no way I'd trust it in hold luggage even on a direct flight. 

The idea of the airline asking everyone on a delayed flight with a connection that they could make but their baggage might not whether they want to try to get to the flight their baggage might not make is ridiculous, to be frank. Who's supposed to do this, the cabin crew on the first flight? There might be 30 people with connections. Bags will be tagged through to the final destination, it'd take someone to manually search the bags perhaps delaying bags being loaded for other connecting flights and perhaps other peoples' bags missing connections. 

The 5 days delay thing is bad. The bag missing the flight it was intended for but being sent on the next one and being delivered to wherever you're staying is reasonable IMO. Always allow for baggage being lost/delayed for a few days and have enough in cabin bags to get you through those days. Or book flights with longer connections times to be a bit safer. 

Voyager2002

Savvy business travellers would keep mission-critical documents, presentations and so forth in their hand luggage. 

sheramber

justice4521 said:

eskbanker said:

You may consider it obvious but some passengers, especially those on their way home, would probably prefer to travel asap even if it means their bags don't keep up, and in any case, if you'd flown the next day, you'd still have had four days at your destination without your luggage as well as having arrived late!

Your assertion that it's a deliberate cost reduction ploy is basically no less speculative than OP's view that it's an actual business model - perhaps understandable to be cynical when mucked about but that doesn't actually prove anything....

I appreciate that passengers on a flight back home could be fine without their bag for 5 days. If flying for a holiday or business trip, however, it could be disastrous to be stuck without clothes etc. for 5 days. As a personal choice, I would never leave a country while my bags are left behind.

I wouldn't call it a business model but my situation has showed me that an airline can knowingly leave your bags behind and not be held accountable for the decision, because it falls between EU Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 and the Montreal Convention.

Random bag delays / losses happen all the time. However, if the airline has actively decided to leave the baggage behind, there needs to be some additional accountability. 

I think what was appropriate is, during the transfer, for the airline to ask me if I wanted to stay behind in Warsaw (because there is no time for a bag transfer) or if I wanted to fly without my bag (so they could send it on the next flight). Instead, the airline made the decision themselves.

Another comment mentioned that I should have carried my medicine in my my cabin bag. My medicine happened to be liquid and more than 100ml, so that wasn't an option.

My case isn't just a simple case of a bag being delayed, which would have been understandable. Its the case of an airline knowingly leaving it behind and not bothering to send it to me for 5 days (now, if I was to speculate, I'd say that was either out of laziness or to actually make it appear as if it was lost. I say this because other passengers on the identical route had the same issue. For 5 days, the airline even refused to tell me my bag had arrived in Warsaw.).

There might not be any seats available on the ‘next’ flight or the one after and……

eskbanker

justice4521 said:

I wouldn't call it a business model but my situation has showed me that an airline can knowingly leave your bags behind and not be held accountable for the decision, because it falls between EU Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 and the Montreal Convention.

Random bag delays / losses happen all the time. However, if the airline has actively decided to leave the baggage behind, there needs to be some additional accountability.

As above, trying to impose some sort of real-time operational intervention is a non-starter, but if you're suggesting some form of retrospective compensation scheme, I'd suggest that it's far too niche a scenario to attract attention of legislators and regulators in the EU and beyond....

justice4521

zagfles said:

The idea of the airline asking everyone on a delayed flight with a connection that they could make but their baggage might not whether they want to try to get to the flight their baggage might not make is ridiculous, to be frank. Who's supposed to do this, the cabin crew on the first flight? There might be 30 people with connections. Bags will be tagged through to the final destination, it'd take someone to manually search the bags perhaps delaying bags being loaded for other connecting flights and perhaps other peoples' bags missing connections. 

Based on how my transfer took place, this is actually not that unrealistic. Immediately after getting off flight 1, there was airline staff waiting at the door and asking for people who are flying to Istanbul (my final destination), because the airline was aware that 2-3 passengers from this flight had to rush to the second flight, which was about to take off. They told us where the gate was and basically all the transfer passengers were hurriedly taken to the gate, with the airline staff leading the way. Must have taken only 2-3 minutes to get there. So, in terms of making us reach flight 2, the airline staff was really well organized.

In the case of the bags, there were already being left behind in Warsaw anyway.

So, the ideal procedure I envision was that, the airline staff who met us right outside the plane could have informed us that there is no sufficient time to transfer our checked-in baggage and given us the option to stay behind (I appreciate most people on the forum don't seem to like the idea but IMO it just depends on the scenario). At that point in time, the airline was already aware of that fact that there is no sufficient time to transfer our baggage but did not disclose this information to the passengers.

Going back to the issue of the original post here, I learnt that, yes, airlines can knowingly leave your baggage behind and there are barely any regulatory consequences of doing so (LOT just had to pay $100 to each passenger in this case, which is their bag delay compensation). 

justice4521

eskbanker said:

As above, trying to impose some sort of real-time operational intervention is a non-starter, but if you're suggesting some form of retrospective compensation scheme, I'd suggest that it's far too niche a scenario to attract attention of legislators and regulators in the EU and beyond....

You could also argue that the airline can comfortably continue the way it currently handles these situations, given that they are not held accountable by any regulations and just be expected to pay minimal compensation.

But you are right, its probably far too niche of a situation to attract much attention from regulators.

Voyager2002

justice4521 said:

zagfles said:

The idea of the airline asking everyone on a delayed flight with a connection that they could make but their baggage might not whether they want to try to get to the flight their baggage might not make is ridiculous, to be frank. Who's supposed to do this, the cabin crew on the first flight? There might be 30 people with connections. Bags will be tagged through to the final destination, it'd take someone to manually search the bags perhaps delaying bags being loaded for other connecting flights and perhaps other peoples' bags missing connections. 

Based on how my transfer took place, this is actually not that unrealistic. Immediately after getting off flight 1, there was airline staff waiting at the door and asking for people who are flying to Istanbul (my final destination), because the airline was aware that 2-3 passengers from this flight had to rush to the second flight, which was about to take off. They told us where the gate was and basically all the transfer passengers were hurriedly taken to the gate, with the airline staff leading the way. Must have taken only 2-3 minutes to get there. So, in terms of making us reach flight 2, the airline staff was really well organized.

In the case of the bags, there were already being left behind in Warsaw anyway.

So, the ideal procedure I envision was that, the airline staff who met us right outside the plane could have informed us that there is no sufficient time to transfer our checked-in baggage and given us the option to stay behind (I appreciate most people on the forum don't seem to like the idea but IMO it just depends on the scenario). At that point in time, the airline was already aware of that fact that there is no sufficient time to transfer our baggage but did not disclose this information to the passengers.

Going back to the issue of the original post here, I learnt that, yes, airlines can knowingly leave your baggage behind and there are barely any regulatory consequences of doing so (LOT just had to pay $100 to each passenger in this case, which is their bag delay compensation). 

I have been in that situation a few times...

I always knew that the chances of checked baggage being transferred on to the connecting flight were minimal. What usually happens is that the checked baggage arrives within a day or so (sometimes less) and is delivered to the passenger's accommodation. I was always pleased when this happened, since it meant that I had less to carry on my journey from the airport. 

zagfles

justice4521 said:

zagfles said:

The idea of the airline asking everyone on a delayed flight with a connection that they could make but their baggage might not whether they want to try to get to the flight their baggage might not make is ridiculous, to be frank. Who's supposed to do this, the cabin crew on the first flight? There might be 30 people with connections. Bags will be tagged through to the final destination, it'd take someone to manually search the bags perhaps delaying bags being loaded for other connecting flights and perhaps other peoples' bags missing connections. 

Based on how my transfer took place, this is actually not that unrealistic. Immediately after getting off flight 1, there was airline staff waiting at the door and asking for people who are flying to Istanbul (my final destination), because the airline was aware that 2-3 passengers from this flight had to rush to the second flight, which was about to take off. They told us where the gate was and basically all the transfer passengers were hurriedly taken to the gate, with the airline staff leading the way. Must have taken only 2-3 minutes to get there. So, in terms of making us reach flight 2, the airline staff was really well organized.

In the case of the bags, there were already being left behind in Warsaw anyway.

So, the ideal procedure I envision was that, the airline staff who met us right outside the plane could have informed us that there is no sufficient time to transfer our checked-in baggage and given us the option to stay behind (I appreciate most people on the forum don't seem to like the idea but IMO it just depends on the scenario). At that point in time, the airline was already aware of that fact that there is no sufficient time to transfer our baggage but did not disclose this information to the passengers.

Going back to the issue of the original post here, I learnt that, yes, airlines can knowingly leave your baggage behind and there are barely any regulatory consequences of doing so (LOT just had to pay $100 to each passenger in this case, which is their bag delay compensation). 

So 2-3 minutes to get to the gate for the next flight, and the ground staff have to have a conversation with each transferring passenger about whether they want to make the flight without baggage.

Passengers will inevitably ask "when will I get my bag then if I get the flight". Ground staff may say "should be on the next flight". Passenger: "well I'm staying 100 miles from IST, will you deliver it to where I'm staying and how long will that take"? Ground staff "it varies but should be no more than a couple of days". Passenger: "can you guarantee that cos I have important stuff in hold luggage".

Some will be asking "when's the next flight I can get to IST"? "Can I just contact my friend who was going to pick me up and see if they can pick me up tomorrow". Or "I've made arrangements for tomorrow morning that I'll miss if I stay, will I get compensation for that". Some may have questions about the overnight hotel and facilities if they have special needs. 

Then there may be questions about entering Schengen, UK to IST via Warsaw will be a non-Schengen to non-Schengen transfer at a Schengen airport, there may be people who need a Schengen VISA to enter Schengen (not sure if Turkish nationals need one, but some nationalities will). Or even UK citizens may have used their Schengen stay allowance. 

Some passengers may have items in their luggage that exceed the Schengen limits but not the Turkish limits. There may be questions about that. 

Some people will easily be able to make a quick decision in this sort of circumstance, others will not and will have a series of questions as above that they need answering before they can make a decision. If they have 2-3 minutes to get to the gate it's ridiculous to except the ground staff to have to potentially field a series of questions as above. 

The compensation levels for delayed passengers and baggage are supposed to reflect the inconvenience caused to passengers. Maybe passengers should bear them in mind and act accordingly, ie accept that there is a greater onus on the airline to get you to your destination than your baggage, and occasionally hold baggage may not make the destination, and make sure everything essential is in cabin baggage at least for a few days.