QF bag transfer?

[SkySista]

My best friend is travelling to New Zealand with QF on Sunday. She'll be going via Sydney on the A330, then switching a/c to continue to Christchurch. On the return trip, she'll be stopping in BNE before returning to Perth. Apparently, she's been told that she'll have to collect her bag and re-check it onto the trans-Tasman flight, even though PER-SYD is supposed to be a continuous flight. Also the same again returning via BNE, having to grab her bag and check it BNE-PER as a se[arate flight.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why this is so? I've always been under the impression that she'd be put through as a continuing pax, and her bag automatically loaded onto the outbound aircraft. Seems a bit silly to risk having her not check in on time, thus missing or holding up the NZ flight while waiting for people to go get their bags!!!!

So what's the deal? Or did she just score the new person with no idea? ;)

Sky

[Globaliser]

On the PER-SYD-CHC trip, I don't see any reason why the bag shouldn't be checked through and automatically transferred at SYD. QF have done similar for me many times (BNE-SYD-LHR, CBR-SYD-LHR).

On the return CHC-BNE-PER trip, though, she will be connecting from an international to an Australian domestic (QF56 -> QF589?). Because the second flight is a domestic flight, she must clear immigration, collect her bag and clear customs in BNE before she transfers onto the domestic. Again, this is a regular occurrence for me (WLG-SYD-CBR, usually).

It's possible that she may have heard the correct advice about the return trip and assumed that it applied to the outbound as well. But she should be aware that there will be different procedures.

Or maybe the agent was only half right.

[SkySista]

The part about customs makes sense, immigration, passports, all that. But I agree, it seems they should just put the bag thru SYD-CHC. I told her to double check in case the agent got it wrong, will see what she says. Probably the case.

Thanks!

Sky

[Wot No Engines]

The only time they won't through check the bags from a domestic flight to an international one is if you break the journey by an overnight stop.

I tried to do this when flying Sydney - Perth - Singapore - London. I had a 1 hour meeting in Perth in the morning, so took the last flight out of Sydney the night before - getting onto an early afternoon flight to Singapore (the next flight out of Perth).