I'm planning a trip to Rome.
If I fly fron ATL to CDG, (non-rev, of course) will my bags be transferred to the (ZED fare) Air France flight to Rome?
Or do I have to get my bags and re-check them in Paris?
Printable View
I'm planning a trip to Rome.
If I fly fron ATL to CDG, (non-rev, of course) will my bags be transferred to the (ZED fare) Air France flight to Rome?
Or do I have to get my bags and re-check them in Paris?
Are you ATL base? I'd go to the nonrev employee travel center on the lower level to get the definitive answer. I've done the emp pass to zed ticket part (you get the AF seat request inside the secured area) but I only had carry-on. (Don't forget that CVG still has CDG flight if ATL gets iffy.)
I'd hazard a guess you'd have to recheck.... as your first arrival into a Schengen country wouldn't you need to clear Customs with your bag then re-check?
When I flew rev ORD-LHR-MAD-SVQ, I didn't touch my bags after I checked it in ORD until I landed in SVQ. Of course, passport control in Madrid wasn't really much, either... the guy hardly looked at my passport (or visa sticker inside, since I was there for more than 90 days) and stamped it without saying a word to me.
weren't you on a rev ticket spongebue?
If any passenger is NOT confirmed on a connecting flight then bags cannot be tagged on to that flight.
If a non-rev had a bag tagged through on a connecting flight that they were on standby for then security rules have been broken big time.
Unless things have changed since I retired "the bag travels with the passenger"...period!!
Yeah, and I also mentioned it in the original post. I suppose I could have clarified that I was directing that at Nick specifically with his comment about picking up the bag once arriving in the Schengen region.Quote:
Originally Posted by mrs767er
flassher, you are right. PPBM (Positive Passenger Baggage Match) is a requirement on international flights, and is also often attempted (not an absolute requirement) on US domestic flights. However, I know that many airlines also have a stand-by tag that can be attached to the checked bag tag, maybe that can be used for standby pax like that?
The Standby Tag is put on a bag when the nonrev checks in, even if the nonrev gets a seat. The reason is that it can be located and removed should the nonrev be bumped.Quote:
Originally Posted by spongebue
I have never come across an airline that will put a Standby Tag on a bag for a connecting flight for a nonrev....there might be an inhouse system within an airline but connecting between different airlines would be a hassle and I doubt it is ever done. Cheers.
That surprises me as i worked for Continental for 18 years and never heard that state side PPBM is NOT a requirement...so if a passenger fails to board a domestic flight then the bag stays onboard???? .....interesting. Cheers.Quote:
Originally Posted by spongebue
Sorry, I missed the inital REV reference, Spongebue; it just seemed moot in this case since it's obviously unconfirmed seats with 2 different airlines and 2 totally different ticketing processes (pass and zed) and CDG to boot!
That's how UA is, at least. They'll try to keep you with your bags, but it's also not set in stone. When I flew rev on UA for spring break almost 4 years ago (before being an employee and flying free was a mere thought) I tried to get an earlier flight from DEN-MSP after flying HNL-SFO-DEN, but wasn't able to because I had checked bags. Didn't matter that I only lived a few miles away from the airport and could go back to get my bags when my original flight arrived; I still had to wait in DEN for a few hours.
On the other hand, I got done with training in DEN last week. I was hoping for a longer layover in ORD so I could meet my mom there and have pizza downtown, so I tried to stand by for an earlier flight at the check-in kiosk. The machine said that there were no earlier flights for me to stand by for, so I just took my boarding pass and went through security. I went to a gate agent that wasn't busy with other customers, explained my situation, and he didn't give a second thought about listing me for an earlier flight (and I told him I had checked bags). Probably helps that I'm an employee, though. IROPS also come into play a bit, and if a bag has to fly before the passenger for some reason, then so be it.
I also do baggage handling at my station. We don't do any extra checking when loading, but we do keep track of who's at the airport and would notice pretty quickly if someone didn't board. Then again, we only have 3 departures a day (2 on Sundays) for the airport, so that's easier to get away with.
I agree with Spongebue... When I used to nonrev on SWA sometimes outa HOU they would put me on an earlier flight and my bags would come on the next. Just like when I went to SYD the other week and they mishandled all the nonrev bags - they all came on last flight
Sorry for the long post....however I feel it is a necessary post after reading some of the coments about unaccompanied bags...
I have the feeling that a large number of members on this forum are very new to the airline industry and may be only in it for the "travel perks" .... it scares me that postive bag match in the US is taken so lightly.....it should not be.
Airline employees should be treated exactly the same as a revenue pax...a security riskl!!
PSA, now defunct, had an employee shoot the pilots on a flight from SFO to LAX because he was pissed of at something....
http://www.globalsecurity.org/images...l-security.gif
Homeland Security
Bag Match—At Last
Testimony to the:
Aviation Subcommittee,
Committee onTransportation and Infrastructure
US House of Representatives
January 23, 2002
Arnold Barnett
George Eastman Professor of Management Science
Sloan School of Management
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Introduction(Contact Information at End of Document)
It is an honor to testify before the House Aviation Subcommittee about positive passenger bag match (PPBM). My interest in the subject dates back to 1996, when I was appointed Chair of the FAA Technical Team asked to investigate the feasibility of domestic PPBM. The centerpiece of our efforts was a 1997 experiment, in which PPBM as applied internationally was performed on domestic [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]flights[/COLOR][/COLOR]. The test was two weeks long, and involved eleven airlines, 50 city-pairs, 8000 flights, and 750,000 passengers. We described it as “the largest bag-match experiment in the history of aviation,” in part because—so far as we knew—it was the only such experiment.
Domestic PPBM began last Friday, because of provisions in the 2001 Aviation and Transportation Security Act. I am elated by this development, and believe that it arrived not a moment too soon. Intelligent terrorists know that they are now unlikely to reach the cockpit, and that growing vigilance by travelers and crews makes sabotage less likely in the passenger cabin. Thus, had Congress not acted decisively with its 60-day screening requirement, the [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]luggage[/COLOR][/COLOR] compartment could well have become the most promising venue for destroying an aircraft.
It would be the understatement of the millennium to say that US airlines are not enthusiastic about PPBM. The CEO of one major [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]airline[/COLOR][/COLOR] warned in November 2001 that PPBM would force his carrier to reduce operations by 25%. That same month, an industry official estimated that bag match would add “zero” security benefit. These assessments, however, do not hold up well under scrutiny.
Criticisms of PPBM
It has been asserted that bag match would greatly disrupt airline operations. This charge, however, is not only unsupported by empirical evidence, but is strongly contradicted by such evidence. Our 1997 experiment indicated that, under usual conditions, US domestic PPBM would cause departure delays averaging one minute. More specifically, 1/7 of flights would suffer delays, which would average seven minutes apiece. PPBM would cost about 40 cents per passenger enplanement, and would require no reduction [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]in [COLOR=blue ! important]flight[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] schedules. The test fully considered connecting as well as originating flights.
More recent evidence about PPBM operations has consistently confirmed our findings. Ryanair, a low-cost European carrier with 25-minute airport turnaround times, maintains a superb on-time record despite the often-dreadful weather of Northwestern Europe. JetBlue and Frontier Airlines--which both implemented bag match recently--have reported short delays on perhaps 3% of their flights. PPBM is now required on all flights involving Washington’s Reagan Airport, but we hear nothing about operational difficulties arising from the practice. Under PPBM, US domestic overwater [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]flights [COLOR=blue ! important]to [/COLOR][COLOR=blue ! important]Honolulu[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] and San Juan experienced bag-match departure delays averaging less than one minute. That outcome was striking because these routes are “hostile” to bag match: They are usually flown with widebody jets, and their passengers generally check bags and often connect from other flights.
It has also been asserted that PPBM offers no protection in itself against suicidal terrorists. That statement is absolutely true. But, historically, very few terrorists who have attacked airplanes have been suicidal. Those who sabotaged Pan Am 103, Air India 182, and UTA 772 were not present when these planes blew up; nor were those whose bombs brought down planes from Thailand to Colombia. The terrorists who plotted in the mid-1990’s to destroy a dozen US jets coming home from Asia—a plot which apparently involved Al Qaeda—were not suicidal. (Neither was Timothy McVeigh.) Unless we view all acts of sabotage before September 11 as irrelevant, we should not discount the value of measures that deter nonsuicidal terrorists.
And, paradoxically, bag-match might help deter some terrorists willing to die. If such a terrorist checks a bag laden with explosives, PPBM forces him to proceed to the gate ready to board his plane. But, now and increasingly in the future, his checked luggage could also be inspected at the airport by other means. If such an inspection revealed his bomb, PPBM’s restriction on his mobility might mean that he could quickly be located and arrested.
That circumstance is important because even someone willing to die in a successful explosion might be averse to life imprisonment for a failed one. Moreover, a group thinking of dispatching such a terrorist might be unnerved by the prospect that he might soon be under interrogation. The crucial point is that--in combination with other forms of baggage screening--bag match could be useful against some suicidal terrorists. It cannot in its own right prevent their success, but it can greatly increase the price of failure.
Limitations of Baggage Screening
Of course, if other screening methods always worked and were always applied, PPBM would be superfluous. But they are not, and we should acknowledge their limitations in any discussion of baggage security.
One widely-used screening approach is hand searches of luggage. Clearly, such searches are better than nothing, but they are not foolproof. Explosive devices are not simply orange cubes that tick loudly; they can be concealed in all kinds of ways and be very difficult to detect. For example, one bomb intended for a jetliner was built into the frame of a [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]suitcase[/COLOR][/COLOR], and had the thickness of wax paper. The plot was foiled by the extraordinarily skills of El Al, but one wonders whether a similar success could be expected at a US airport.
I have no doubt that the explosives detection (EDS) machines headed for all US airports are very good. But no one has suggested that they are perfect. Chairman Mica has noted that terrorists may be devising new explosives that EDS machines would not detect. And there is always the chance of human error in interpreting inspection results, a problem that could be exacerbated by a high false-alarm rate.
Some Recommendations
With these considerations in mind, I would make two recommendations to the subcommittee:
(1)Even when EDS machines are fully deployed, PPBM should be continued.
Absent bag-match, a terrorist could check a bag with explosives (probably having shown a fake ID), and then race from the airport. If his luggage eludes the EDS machine, his mission would succeed. More likely, the machine will detect his bomb; by the time it does so, however, he could already be in hiding. His mission has failed, but he has lived to kill another day.
Without PPBM to raise the consequences of failure, terrorists could view the EDS machine as a huge roulette wheel. They could continue to play the odds based on its error rate. And, if they persist, we can expect that, eventually, they will win. Especially because PPBM costs so little, it seems imprudent to give it up when the explosives detectors arrive.
(2) No checked bag should be exempted from PPBM because it has passed a screening test like a hand search.
The argument about EDS machines is even more potent for other screening methods, which are presumably less effective at detecting bombs. If he believes that his bomb will elude a hand search, the nonsuicidal terrorist has no desire to board the plane. PPBM, therefore, is sometimes a backup system that can save the day when physical screening would not.
PPBM for Connecting Passengers
Beyond these general issues is a controversy that has flared in recent days. As introduced last week, PPBM is required for originating passengers but not connecting ones. This distinction has some unintended geographic consequences. It means that, while nearly everyone boarding at Providence, Austin, or Sacramento will have full PPBM on the flight, virtually no one boarding at Atlanta, St. Louis, or Charlotte will do so. The last three cities, after all, are hubs that handle lots of connecting traffic.
More ominously, an “originating only” policy could allow a terrorist to travel with a suitcase bomb on the first leg of the flight, but to absent himself when it explodes on the second leg. Such a grim scenario may have historical precedent. In 1989, a French DC-10 from Zaire to Paris on a French DC-10 (UTA 772) exploded over North Africa. While the exact circumstances of the crash are not known, the official inquiry pointedly raised the possibility that a passenger checked a luggage bomb from Zaire to Paris and deboarded at an intermediate stop before the explosion.
The airlines strongly oppose connecting-PPBM, contending that it could bring chaos to hub operations. But an important distinction must be made. During extreme weather conditions that cancellations, delays, diversions and reroutings, a rigid application of bag-match could make a terrible situation even worse. But during normal conditions, connecting PPBM is not terribly onerous. The 1997 domestic test showed that, of every 2000 connecting passengers, only one with a checked bag was missing at departure time for his [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]outbound [COLOR=blue ! important]flight[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]. In those rare instances when a bag-pull was required, it delayed the flight seven minutes on average. Indeed, most observed delays during the experiment were tied to originating passengers.
Some numbers offer us some perspective. About 75% of the passengers boarding US jets are originating passengers. (Even travelers making connections are originating passengers on their first flights.) Thus, the present PPBM regime already covers 3/4 of jet passengers. If PPBM were extended to connecting passengers during normal conditions, the coverage rate would approach 95%. For difficult situations at hubs, PPBM might well have to be modified. If performed skillfully, however such modifications could go a long way towards avoiding undue delays without compromising passenger safety.
I therefore reach a third recommendation to the subcommittee:
(3) PPBM should be extended as rapidly as possible to domestic connecting passengers.
Especially because the “originating only” policy has been so widely publicized, its continuation poses an unknown degree of danger. The policy is based on the dubious premise that, if we can’t readily do connecting bag-match in all conditions, we shouldn’t do it in any. We could easily extend bag match to the heavy majority of on-line connecting passengers, whose inbound and outbound flights are essentially on time. Harder case--involving irregular hub operations or interline bags—could be accommodated by an imaginative policy that allows some flexibility.
Final Comment
There is every reason to fear that terrorists are still fascinated by aviation, and that their further success against airplanes would horrify the American people, devastate the airline industry, and gravely harm the national economy. As with earthquakes, an aftershock to September 11 could cause more damage than the original event itself. But that calamity is less likely now because bold decisions by Congress have yielded positive bag match. After a British victory early in the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher admonished journalists to “just rejoice at that news.” All Americans can rejoice that, at long last, unaccompanied checked bags with their attendant dangers are disappearing from the skies over our country.
Arnold Barnett
E53-379 Office Phone: (617) 253-2670
MIT Home Phone: (617) 484-2660
Cambridge, MA 02139 Cell Phone: (617) 686-1485
E-mail: abarnett@mit.edu Fax: (617) 258-7579