YVR disaster today!

Had an early flight and arrived on time BUT the conveyer for the checked luggage was not working. We had to make the decision to make the flight and give up our big bag. If anyone is on Vancouver and sees a homeless person with a Princess robe from the USL tour - it is mine.Do not want it back. We needed to make the connection and gave up a few things in our big bag. Barely made the connecting flight at MSP. But great cruise, just lost some shirts and underwear. All is good. Many people did not make the flight and the stewards said 90% of people on plane were re-directed. We ran like heck to make the connecting flight. So all is good - just a warning to all going through VCR early in the morning (5:00am).

Had an early flight and arrived on time BUT the conveyer for the checked luggage was not working. We had to make the decision to make the flight and give up our big bag. If anyone is on Vancouver and sees a homeless person with a Princess robe from the USL tour - it is mine.Do not want it back. We needed to make the connection and gave up a few things in our big bag. Barely made the connecting flight at MSP. But great cruise, just lost some shirts and underwear. All is good. Many people did not make the flight and the stewards said 90% of people on plane were re-directed. We ran like heck to make the connecting flight. So all is good - just a warning to all going through VCR early in the morning (5:00am).

Yikes....I'll be there on Friday...I won't try to get your robe back ;):)

:eek: Thanks for the warning!

Mostly will be available on one Friday afternoon at the YVR Chaplaincy...

http://www.yvrchaplain.com/thrift-store

http://www.yvr.ca/en/Airmail-articles/2011-04-Airmail/Chaplaincy-04-11.aspx

Sorry to hear this.

Keith

I'm dense, I don't understand, why they had to "give up" bags? (my husband used to be a lead mechanic on ground support). Wasn't the option given to check them? Then they would be delivered at a later time? I've had this occur with my nonrev travel.

We had planned to check 3 bags. With the conveyer broken there was a massive line waiting for it to be fixed. We had the choice of potentially missing our flight of we waited with all of the people. There wasn't any organization and people were crowding and butting in line. So we decided that we would carry 2 on and leave the big bag. We did not want it to appear that we abandoned it, so we asked the information person if we could leave it with her and she said she would donate the stuff to the homeless.

The airlines did nothing to try to get the luggage moving in a proper way. This airport you had to personally put it on the conveyer. We took out out of the big bag as much as we could fit into our carry on luggage.

Many people did not make it to the plan on time. After you placed your luggage on the conveyer you STILL had to go through US Customs and TSA. Since we had a short one hour layover we thought this was the best choice.

Some thoughts...

• it's incredibly risky for an airport staff to accept a bag from a stranger without knowing the full contents. I assume there was some safety protocol, but understandable when the baggage services are not working.
  
• I'm surprised if US baggage was messed up... they could not load the luggage from international side to the West.
  
• in the past, luggage was weighed as part of check-in at YVR. To streamline the check-in, luggage is now weighed post-check in as it's loaded onto the belt.
  
  • Many heavy luggage travellers don't pre-weigh their luggage prior to the flight. If they do... it's incredibly confusing to keep track what is permitted for each airline.
    
  • overweight luggage travellers are asked to step aside and told to repack.... or buy additional luggage to be charged more... adding to the delays for themselves and those behind.
    
  • the weight honor system doesn't work.
    
  • I now travel with a small luggage scale. Less stress at the airport.
    

I wonder if there is any compensation for those who waited for the belts to be fixed, but missed their designated and connecting flights.

wow! so you weren't kidding when you said homeless people will be wearing your princess robe! And underpants! It's better than throwing it away, but that stinks that they couldn't figure out a system to get it checked on a later flight.

This is a whole different story then. You state a "1 hour layover", which is not enough time anyway with this itinerary, needing to go Ca to US. How did you choose these flights?

IF you were connecting- as you state with the "layover" claim, your bags would have been already tagged, from your originating and should have been able to make your destination eventually. So, this still doesn't sound right?

This is a whole different story then. You state a "1 hour layover", which is not enough time anyway with this itinerary, needing to go Ca to US. How did you choose these flights?

 

IF you were connecting- as you state with the "layover" claim, your bags would have been already tagged, from your originating and should have been able to make your destination eventually. So, this still doesn't sound right?

I too am confused with this posting. As stated above if it was a connecting flight, your bags would have been tagged all the way through. If it was an early flight choice after getting off a cruise, another reason to book a later flight.

I too am confused with this posting. As stated above if it was a connecting flight, your bags would have been tagged all the way through. If it was an early flight choice after getting off a cruise, another reason to book a later flight.

It sounds like a situation I've been in at other airports when connecting and having to clear customs. You must pick up your luggage when you land and before you clear immigration and customs. Then you must put your luggage on the conveyor to get it to your next destination. It doesn't get re-tagged, just re-checked. When I've done this, there are signs posted telling you that you are responsible for your luggage and that no one else will put it in for you. (I seem to recall one place also posting that unattended luggage would be destroyed - implying that if you didn't claim and re-check your luggage it would be destroyed.) Usually after this you have to also re screen at security and anyone who bought duty free liquids loses them if they didn't add them to a suitcase that would be checked.

Ok - if we had waited in the line to put the bags on the conveyer we would have missed our flight and a lot of people did. So we had our tickets changed to no checking gave the bag to the information woman and went through Customs and TSA. We were at the end of a very long line and people were cutting in and we saw that there was a big chance we would never make it to the plane. People can be quite rude and angry when people start cutting into the line and I thought the scene could go bad quickly. I have seen that on disembarkation at Galveston when Princess used that terminal. I know that was a long time ago.

And of course we had about 45 minutes on the ground delay from VYR to MSP. When we made the reservations through Delta it had a 2 hour delay. About 2 months before the flight Delta changed it to an hour layover. So we exited plane one and RAN to the flight. This is the first time I can say I was last on to board! The doors shut about 2 minutes later.

In hindsight it probably was dumb but we really wanted to get home

Ok - if we had waited in the line to put the bags on the conveyer we would have missed our flight and a lot of people did. So we had our tickets changed to no checking gave the bag to the information woman and went through Customs and TSA. We were at the end of a very long line and people were cutting in and we saw that there was a big chance we would never make it to the plane. People can be quite rude and angry when people start cutting into the line and I thought the scene could go bad quickly. I have seen that on disembarkation at Galveston when Princess used that terminal. I know that was a long time ago.

And of course we had about 45 minutes on the ground delay from VYR to MSP. When we made the reservations through Delta it had a 2 hour delay. About 2 months before the flight Delta changed it to an hour layover. So we exited plane one and RAN to the flight. This is the first time I can say I was last on to board! The doors shut about 2 minutes later.

In hindsight it probably was dumb but we really wanted to get home

Where did you fly from? Frankly, you never should have accepted the 1 hour layover. Clearly not enough time in Vancouver. Interesting you had time to change to no bags?

They would not allow us to go through Customs and TSA without it and then again -EVERYONE was in line to get their bags on the conveyer. to change the tickets took a minute. It was a cluster...

Had an early flight and arrived on time BUT the conveyer for the checked luggage was not working. We had to make the decision to make the flight and give up our big bag. If anyone is on Vancouver and sees a homeless person with a Princess robe from the USL tour - it is mine.Do not want it back. We needed to make the connection and gave up a few things in our big bag. Barely made the connecting flight at MSP. But great cruise, just lost some shirts and underwear. All is good. Many people did not make the flight and the stewards said 90% of people on plane were re-directed. We ran like heck to make the connecting flight. So all is good - just a warning to all going through VCR early in the morning (5:00am).

This sounds like something that could ruin a vacation and I'm glad it didn't ruin yours. I rarely check my bags any more just to avoid this type of situation.