Bags going missing
Hello folks, a query.
For the first time on Monday in 20 odd years of travelling, we arrived at Heathrow without a full compliment of bags. Fair play to United though, they had already popped it on another flight and it arrived at our day barely 20 hours later.
But it leads me to some questions, could anyone with bagging handling knowledge maybe help out.
But first some details. Flight was Phoenix to Heathrow via LAX. I'm not sure where it went awol but assume its during the connection.
1) I noticed on the way out to Phx that the luggage labels were scanned by the chap who puts them on the conveyor up to the hold. Presumably this says 'oui' or 'non' and it gets put on/taken off accordingly?
2) if it doesn't belong on that flight, is it sent immediately to the one it is meant to be on?
3) I assume that that gun knows exactly how many bags are meant to be loaded and will tell someone when there are any missing? If so, how long do they hunt around for. Seconds, minutes, until they find it, or until the pilots want to leave?
4) the guy that dropped it off suggested that the transfer was the likely culprit. What happens there then? Do they offload the baggage that's going somewhere else onto seperate trolleys which then take them all direct to the new aircraft, or do they go back into the system. We had 4 cases, 2 of them went through check in together so id imagine they were fairly close to each other for the first flight, so its odd that one would get itself lost when the other arrived in perfect order.
Gracias,
Steve