American Airlines wants to make sure you are not separated from your luggage on smaller, regional airplanes.
To that end, American is now requiring passengers to fill out luggage tags for their small bags or carry-ons on regional airlines.
The airline said it’s not for identification purposes. Rather, it’s to reunite passengers with bags they either forgot or lost.
Formally, it was kind of a crapshoot.
Because smaller, regional airplanes have little to no overhead space, passengers would leave their carry-on or small bags on the jet bridge and retrieve them after the flight was over.
Sometimes the bags were forgotten or lost.
For the most part, it’s a good practice. Passengers are able to literally step off the plane and onto the jet bridge and retrieve their bags without going to baggage claim. Usually, passengers put an identifying marker such as a ribbon or bow on their bag so it can be easily identified.
American, like most airlines, has noticed that people put their names and identifying information on large, checked bags, but rarely do for small bags or carry-ons.
In a memo, Americans said “These tags are not recorded anywhere in Qik/Sabre. Because of this, when customers do not pick up their bags at their destination, we may have little to no contact information to use to reunite them with their bags. This increases our mishandled baggage reports, may incur baggage delivery costs and provides a poor customer experience.”
Going forward, on smaller, regional airlines like American Eagle, American Airlines will hand you a valet tag and ask you to fill out your contact information in case the bag is forgotten or lost.
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