Posted on 12/04/2022 3:42:32 PM PST by george76
I worked for NWA at ANC during the summer of 1996. I never saw anyone stealing or deliberately mishandling baggage. All we did was get it on or off the airplane as fast as possible. But we were actual NWA employees, and not some contract outfit.
Reno TSA inspected my checked luggage and snagged a few hundred dollars worth of electronics.
TSA left me a nice note letting me know that my luggage was inspected for customer safety.
I was flying out of LAX north to a central coast destination and watched from the elevated passenger waiting area an act of deliberate vandalism…with my briefcase!!
The small prop job plane was being loaded when a baggage monkey threw my locked “beater” briefcase like a quarterback heaving a pass. It slammed into a bulkhead support and caved in on the one side. Fortunately, the 4-5 hundred pages inside didn’t come loose.
I immediately contacted the gate agent and pointed out the miscreant from the window. Upon arrival, they had the claim ready to go and it consisted of choosing a brand new briefcase from a “catalog” to replace the busted up case, which was received about a week later.
Standard Operating Procedure at every airport. You didn’t know this already? Luggage has to be touch and you NEVER put anything fragile in it.
This is normal. This isn’t even particularly bad.
Surely, you jest. Masterpiece Theatre is still around. My wife makes me watch it.
They just don’t show anything remotely a ‘masterpiece’ anymore!
I do remember that, but there have long been robots loading pallets the would seem capable these days of transferring misc. shaped bags from one mode of transport to another.
That’s what I saw too. And the “kick” was him positioning it on the belt.
I remember one long time USPS employee saying they stole a set of luggage. If they did that, they did much more. I know they did. I will not use usps anymore.
Bruce Webster, principal of Webster & Associates LLC, a Washington-based consulting company that works with companies on troubled IT projects, said the decision by United came years too late. "There are a few lessons that large companies just don't seem to learn," he said. "The first lesson is that the best way to build a large, complex system is to evolve it from a small system that works. No one bothered to get a small system up and running in the first place -- they went for the big bang."This is ESPECIALLY true with the effort to re-invent and overhaul transportation in the USA away from hydrocarbon liquid fuels to EVs and batteries. It took 130 years to evolve to the highly complex and highly optimized liquid hydrocarbon fuel system we have today. You cannot convert that overnight (where "overnight" means 20-40 years). The lesson Mr. Webster cites is going to rear its ugly head again, only this time, it will be land transportation affecting EVERY person on USA soil, not just air travelers passing through DIA.
Is one John McClain?
Attempting to break other people stuff that has been entrusted to you is funny?
I watched some airport maintenance guys adjust a conveyor diverter by removing the side rail so the could see how far it could launch a bag.
Too many modern mysteries. I guess they have done all the Brontë, Austen, and Dickens stuff already.
I am sure the producers tell themselves that!
I believe it. Even back when I worked in that business briefly in the mid 1980s (Hudson General), that kind of stuff was going on. I remember one time in particular a bag was opened with women’s lingerie. Guys were pulling various articles of it over their heads and trying to smell the woman who wore it. Savages! Supervisors always looked the other way when that stuff was going on.
I know I’m weird, but I pack things in checked bags presuming they will be mishandled by baggage handlers. I do the same for anything I ship across the country. I pack as though my suitcase or package or whatever is going to be thrown against a wall or dropped from a high elevation. Suitcase or box may be torn up, but the contents are secure.
My wife has what is called a PBS Passport that allows you to watch some of the old stuff. She currently is controlling the remote and watching “Death at Pemberely,” which is some modern mystery novel that continues on where “Pride and Prejudice” ended.
*** They would joke “Uh, oh, this one is special, handle with care” and maybe give it a knee kick or a light tap off the cinder block wall***
I purposely don’t mark things fragile for the very reason you stated.
.
Or Amtrak.
Almost 20 years ago I moved across the country.
You can (at least back then you could) take a LOT of baggage on the train.
They toss it in the baggage car(s) - 'Toss' being the operative word.
I saw how they handled my boxes at the end when I was in
30th Street station in Philly to claim them.
They were not unloaded yet - and I watched them TOSS them
off of the tail end of the baggage car.
From about Ten feet up - SLAM! Onto the concrete - SLAM! SLAM!
I then understood WHY when I checked the stuff in, they had asked me
'What was in the boxes?' and I when told them 'Computers and Electronic
Equipment', the Amtrak guy said: 'No can do friend'.
'We don't insure anything, and we accept nothing breakable.'
SLAM!
Yup.
At least they were 'up front' about it.
.
(I had the electronics sent after me later via UPS. They made it okay.
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