Delta Airlines: Horrible Baggage Handling System

I'm sharing this experience to make potential Delta Airline customers aware of the unreliable baggage handling system they have.  Part of the issue is with the software/hardware system that creates and prints bag tags and part is the human element involved in the tracking of lost bags (or "Delayed Bags" as they so optimistically refer to the predicament).

Here is the story by day.

Sunday, June 28th, 2015:

I checked my bag at Grand Rapids, Michigan airport (GRR). Unbeknownst to me, someone else was checking a bag at the same time.  This is not unusual, I know.  I will call this other person Carly (fictitiously named to protect the innocent while conjuring Carly Fiorina who isn't).  The relevant fact is that Carly was apparently going to London Heathrow (LHR) and I was going to John Wayne airport (SNA).

The Problem:
Somehow, the bag tag system generated two bag tags with Carly's itinerary.  I hope for Carly's sake that one of them was affixed to her bag.  Sadly, the other was affixed to my bag.  I did not notice this before handing it to TSA for screening.  Even worse, my bag went to LHR.  I have no idea whether my name is on the bag tag or not.  However the bag tag receipt that I was given, had Carly's name and her itinerary identification.

The Trip:

This begins and ends badly.  My flight from GRR to Minneapolis International Airport (MSP) was delayed by thunderstorms in the MSP region.  As a result I missed my connecting flight.  Two hours later we boarded standby to SNA and arrived around 9:30 in Orange County.  Five flights arrived at about the same time.  So there was an announcement to "be patient" as there are way more flights and baggage than the few people working for Delta can handle.  So much for optimism.

My wife's bag arrives on the carousel after 15 minutes so it is a matter of time before I see my bag.  At around 10:30PM I am met by a Delta baggage employee who seems to have a premonition that I may be filing a claim.  We proceed to her office where the reality of the mistake becomes clear.

For the next half hour we try to unravel the situation.  Carly's name is on my receipt.  A bag matching the bag tag identification on my receipt is in fact on a flight to LHR.  Whether it is hers or mine is unclear.  I provide a description of my bag and its contents.  I am told my bag will be identified by my large yellow name tag and contents and will be routed to ATL where it will be sent through customs and returned to SNA.  By the way, SNA is 4 hours south of my home town.  So we start to discuss how my bag will in fact be routed when it arrives in SNA.  The agent asks where I live and which airports are closest to me.  I answer Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo.  Neither airport is served by Delta.  She suggests putting the bag on an AirWest (United) flight from SNA.   Anyway, I am told that the bag will arrive Monday in SNA around 11:30 AM.

Monday, June 29th:

Incompetence:
Whoever unloaded the LHR baggage in ATL tagged my bag for flight DL1757 to SNA.  In any case, The bag has not arrived in SNA by 3PM.  Suspicious, I look up the flight status and find that DL1757 is a flight between MSP and Denver.  I called baggage claim at around 6PM and questioned why my bag was tagged for DL1757.  After several minutes on hold I am told that this is an error and that the bag will be put on a flight to SNA to arrive by 6PM this evening.  This does not happen.  For the first time the agent suggests that when the bag does arrive in SNA it may be sent via UPS.  OK, so now I am thinking it may take an additional 2-3 days after it reaches SNA before it gets to me.  I relate my anxiety, but am told the method of delivery will be determined once the bag arrives in SNA and to be patient.

Tuesday, June 30th:
I awaken to find that the status of my bag has not changed.  It is still in ATL, or so they say.  There is a bag there having my bag tag number but no one is able to tell me what the bag looks like nor I am able to speak directly with anyone in ATL baggage claim.  Therefore, it could be anyone's bag, perhaps even Carly's (sorry gal).  I call again around 6PM and after at least 10 minutes on hold, the agent essentially repeats to me what I already know, i.e. he thinks the bag is in ATL but it could be in SNA by now.  No one seems to know for certain where it is.  Very comforting...

Further, I am told to wait until 7AM Wednesday morning to see if the night crew in ATL (or SNA) find my bag and and put it on a flight to SNA.  I ask if the original bag tag number is on my bag (or someone's bag) what is to prevent the bag from being sent bag to LHR.  The answer was not comprehensible.  I also ask not so politely why the bag had been in ATL for 24 hours and is still tagged for flight DL1757, despite my phone call advising them of their routing error?  The answer was something akin to "ATL is a big airport and we have a lot of bags". WTF?

Below is the official log from Delta.com/baggage.  An entry is made in the log each time a bag matching my bag tag number is found and scanned.  My bag arrived in ATL Monday at 9:05 PM and it has not been scanned since.  The theory is that it is sitting in the baggage claim office locked and safe (while I envision it spinning on some carousel in LHR or who knows where) because I don't have visual proof that it is really my bag their system has associated with the bag tag receipt I was given (which is actually Carly's).

Wednesday, July 1, 7AM:
I called Delta baggage (re)claim @ 800-325-8224 after there was no activity in the transaction log (delta.com/baggage) overnight.  The lady had great bedside manner but had little new information.  She thinks the bag is in ATL in cold storage which is why it has not been scanned for two days.  Bags are only scanned when going into or coming out of cold storage.  Most likely it is there because of the DL1757 fiasco.  She sent a message to LHR, DTW (Detroit), MSP, ATL, and SNA asking for a search of a bag matching my description and if found that it be scanned so we know where it is.

DTW enters the mix because Carly's itinerary was GRR -> DTW -> LHR.  The bag may have been mishandled at any of these points.  There is also a possibility that the bag returned to LHR given that the bag tag itinerary may have been used when the back was sent to ATL.

She said to give it 4 to 5 hours and then call back.  I asked if I should start making an itemized list of the bag's contents and she thought that was a good idea if only because it takes a while to recollect everything I may have put in the bag.  She went on to say that all unclaimed luggage eventually goes to one large warehouse.  If my bag is missing after 5 days, I am to file a claim which includes my item inventory.  This will be used by people at the warehouse who will use it to verify my bag when located.  She claims Delta finds 99% of all "delayed bags".  Given the millions of bags they process a year and what I imagine is a large number of missing bags, I did not feel completely consoled on this point.  I am creating the inventory.

10AM
It occurred to me that since duplicate bag tags were issued, both containing Carly's itinerary, perhaps there was a similar transaction record under our mutual bag tag id and her last name.  So I entered that information at delta.com/baggage and lo and behold the following log appeared:

I called back again and explained the history to yet another agent.  I told her that there was a second transaction log under Carly's name having the same bag tag id.  I also asked her if Carly had filed her own missing baggage claim and was told she had.  Her bag was picked up yesterday at LHR so all subsequent transactions must be referring to my bag.  The agent wrote LHR baggage claim and asked them to find my bag and verify that it has Carly's id and matches my description of lost luggage.  My bag contained 3 bags of linguine noodles from Sunrise Creative Gourmet and 4 bags of pecan caramel corn from Garrett's in Chicago.  It is unlikely that any bag in the world has those contents today.  As of now I am hopeful I will again see my bag.  But all flights from LHR to either ATL or SNA have already left for the day.  So with luck it is on a flight to SNA tomorrow and i will receive it on Friday via UPS overnight.

Thursday, July 2:

The messages sent on Wednesday morning to all relevant airports paid off.  MSP says they have my bag and they put it on a flight to SNA this morning.  The flight arrived around 2PM PT and the log says it is set up for delivery.  I was too busy to find out if UPS picked it up today and Delta placed no information in the transaction log to indicate that it was taken by UPS.  Delta did not contact me today regarding the bag.

I'm still trying to figure out what happened.  Somehow my bag got on the plane from GRR to MSP even though the bag tag should have directed it to DTW.  Once it arrived MSP, the bag tag would have identified a DTW flight or a LHR flight that does not originate at MSP, therefore I assume the baggage agent moved it to cold storage until someone provided further instruction.  Why the bag was never scanned in MSP until yesterday is a mystery.  I am also confused why the transaction log of record remains Carly's rather than mine.

Of some concern is that it looks like the bag sat on a carousel for 49 minutes.  Fortunately no one took it.

Friday, July 3:

There was no activity in the log (below) overnight.  So I called a baggage agent and was told that there was no record of the bag at SNA and that it was probably in ATL cold storage.  I was kept on hold for ten minutes at least and then the agent said she was placing calls to both MSP and ATL.  I expressed incredulity that she would be calling MSP because the log from the previous day indicated that the bag was no longer there.  She said she had no information that the bag had been taken by UPS, in fact, she was quite certain that due to the arrival time of my bad in SNA that the UPS pick up time would have passed.  She could not explain why she thought that the bag was in ATL given the scan showing the arrival of the bag in SNA and no further activity.

I became furious and hung up at that point.  I suggested to my wife that there was a chance that the bag would show up today.  I figured that Delta kept such poor records that someone may have sent the bag via UPS and did not bother to update the transaction log.  This is actually Carly's log.  My log had not been updated since June 29th.

So I went to Target to buy a few sundries that were in the missing bag.  While there I received a phone call from an SNA baggage agent named Kathy.  She claimed that my bag had been delivered by UPS at 2PM.  That was news to me.  My wife was home so I called her to confirm.  It was indeed my bag and all was intact, including the 4 bags of Garrett popcorn from Chicago that were not as appealing at they had been the previous weekend.

Kathy explained that she had recorded in Delta's offline transaction log that she had placed the bag with UPS and that UPS was very prompt in picking it up for shipment.  She could not explain why other agents were unable to read her notes in the log and why they thought the bag was in ATL when it had already been shipped to me the afternoon before.  She was very nice and said she would call back later after I had a chance to get home, see the bag, and check the contents.  The only things missing were my yellow name tag and all the tags from the bag's journey.  I said I was curious where the bag had been and she said she saw a tag for LHR.  I told her I had assumed that the bag had somehow gotten to MSP on my flight but she didn't think that was the case.  She thought it may have gone from LHR to ATL and then from ATL to MSP, although there was nothing in either online log (Carly's or mine) to confirm this.  So it is still a mystery exactly what happened with my bag.  I had hoped for closure but instead I have my clothes.

The next day I received an email from Delta "Tell us how we did?".  Believe me I will have a lot of constructive and not so constructive criticism.

I checked my file and it was closed as of July 3rd, but Carly's is still open.  Not sure why.

Case closed.

Lessons Learned:

1. Stop flying Delta Airlines
2. Always review the bag tag before handing my bag over to TSA at checkin
3. Be less trusting of checked luggage in the future
4. Take a photo of my checked bag so I can more precisely describe color/shape/etc.
5. Put my camera in a carry on bag