Checked baggage offloaded arbitrarily

Status
Not open for further replies.

ss1801

Junior Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Posts
19
This happened 5 years ago. I was flying out of Port Hedland (regional airport) with QF to Perth, flying overseas the same evening Perth for a major family trip. The wife and kid were flying out of Sydney separately to meet up in Singapore. There was no room for any luggage stuff up or the trip will be made really messy.
As it happened, the Port Hedland check-in was progressing well and all boarded awaiting departure in the aircraft, quite a full flight I would say. The usual waiting for paper work clearance etc...... except that it took longer than usual. That was a hot day, yeah but that’s Port Hedland, big deal. Vaguely I remembered it was at least a 717 type aircraft (not smaller).
I was at the window seat and I saw something that was so nerve breaking (for me personally) and I was very unsettled in the next 2 hours journey. Then came the announcement over the PA by the Pilot. Apparently it was such a hot day that the overall weight has to be reduced to assist the plane lifting off. So the handler had to arbirarily off-loading bags..... and I thought OMG, this can’t be happening.... and I saw the off-loading action not far from where I was sitting. I couldn’t be 100% for certain if my bag was one of those being removed but one did look like my bag.
Waiting so anxously and so painfully at the conveyor belt for my bag in Perth airport was simply too painful to bear and again just like the movie or the musical chair, it came out almost the last one. Phew, what a relief. A few very annoying passengers including a colleague of mine were the unlucky one. I was just too grateful to collect mine.
So from now on, when I have a tight connection as such, I will ask and remind them at check-in, wouldn’t know if that makes any difference.
 
Interesting that you bring this up 5 years after the incident. Something happen recently that made you bring it up again?

I don't know exactly what QF's protocol is on this; in fact, not sure at all if any airline has a protocol on this. They may just do exactly all of that - arbitrarily off-load bags.

If the restriction was known at the time of check-in (or other contributing factors, e.g. 100% load), it would be wise for the check-in staff to warn all passengers checking bags of the fact and then see if any bags could be flagged as being able to be delayed as necessary (i.e. voluntarily). Before boarding, if it further became an issue, a PA should be made to call for volunteers to have their baggage delayed.

As a point, I would expect that if it came to arbitrary off-loading, bags which are tagged onwards (especially to international destinations) should be given lower priority compared to bags tagged to PER alone. Of course, I suppose the number of bags with onwards tagging would probably outnumber those just going to PER...

I don't think your remark at check-in would make much difference as such, although you may like to ask them (calmly and politely) when things aren't too busy about what they do if such a situation were to happen (again).
 
I would think that the earlier you had checked in the more likely your bag would have been one of the first bags loaded right up against the rear bulkhead of the cargo hold & of course one of the last bags to be unloaded at the other end.

When time is of the essence it would make sense to offload bags that will take the minimum amount of time to locate which generally speaking would be the ones last to be loaded from a pax who was one of the last to checkin.

717's are a beast to load and unload as there is a lot of manual handling involved ie the hold is not containerised nor is there a magic carpet (conveyor belt) within the cargo hold like there is on a B737.
 
As I log on, the word off loading in other thread happened to catch my attention hence sharing the experinece. Although that happened 5 years ago but it was like yesterday to me.
 
The Frequent Flyer Concierge team takes the hard work out of finding reward seat availability. Using their expert knowledge and specialised tools, they'll help you book a great trip that maximises the value for your points.

AFF Supporters can remove this and all advertisements

Out of curiosity, how come your baggage was not checked through from PHE to the final destination via PER?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Enhance your AFF viewing experience!!

From just $6 we'll remove all advertisements so that you can enjoy a cleaner and uninterupted viewing experience.

And you'll be supporting us so that we can continue to provide this valuable resource :)


Sample AFF with no advertisements? More..
Back
Top