WTOP can take you on a behind-the-scenes tour of how United Airlines handles luggage for the 53,000 passengers that are flying in and out of Dulles International Airport this Labor Day weekend.
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Airport mystery: How do my bags end up where I am?
Ever wonder exactly how your checked baggage gets to your destination?
WTOP can take you on a behind-the-scenes tour of how United Airlines handles luggage for the 53,000 passengers flying in and out of Dulles International Airport this Labor Day weekend.
Jim Decker, United’s director of ramp operations at Dulles, started the tour near the ticket counter and kiosks, where travelers were printing out their boarding passes, then heading to the counter to drop off their checked luggage.
Decker said travelers can save up to 30 minutes of time at the airport by checking their bags through United’s new mobile app before arriving at the airport. And passengers can check the app’s bag tracker for time stamps at every point in the process.
Rather than printing a boarding pass at a kiosk, after answering several questions and presenting a credit card, followed by waiting in line to drop off bags at the ticket counter, passengers at Dulles who have checked their bags on the app can walk directly to a designated bag drop shortcut location.
Standing near a digital reader, Decker said, “You just take the QR code, stick it under, and it’ll generate where you’re going, how many bags you said you have. Then it’ll start printing out the bag tags. The person behind will help you put your tags on, verify they’re you, and they’ll go on this belt, right here.”
That’s the last time you’ll see your bags until you arrive where you’re flying.
But now, after scanning his badge at several doors, taking an elevator and walking through cinder block halls, Decker offers a demonstration and explanation of how approximately 10,000 bags will be handled on the Thursday before Labor Day.
“You just checked your bag, and put it on the belt,” Decker said. “Where did it go? That’s where we take over.”
Standing next to a fast-moving belt, where just-checked baggage is being carried, Decker said the first stop is for Transportation Security Administration screening, before continuing its trip on belts snaking beneath the lobby.
“Now it comes to us, and United takes over the bag so we can sort it,” Decker said. “We have 39 different chutes in our bag room. We have a chute for Des Moines, we have a chute for San Francisco, we have a chute for Frankfurt Boston, and all the different destinations.”
Within seconds, a bag headed for San Francisco noisily clattered into a chute. A ramp service employee — commonly known as a baggage handler — scans the luggage tag and places the bag in the large metal bin that will be eventually be towed to the plane.
Some of the bags are being sorted to travel to where the first flight is headed.
“Those are called ‘city bags,’ and then we have ‘transfer bags,’ because they’re going there to go somewhere else in the world,” he said.
As employees sort the bags, an eye is kept on the clock.
“Forty-five minutes before your departure time, someone will pick up your bags, or the carts, and take them out to the airplane, so the teams out there can start loading them to make sure we have an on-time departure,” he said.
Passengers on a plane, waiting to take off, are familiar with the sight of small baggage tugs, which pull the luggage from the bag room to the planes.
As the United flight is being prepared at the gate, employees transfer the bags to a belt loader, which carries the luggage into storage areas in the belly of the plane.
“On this 737, a narrow-bodied aircraft, we have two pits,” in the front and toward the back of the plane, he said. “It’s critical for a plane to fly with the weight balanced properly — it has more fuel-efficiency, and can get there faster.”
Employees who’ve climbed into the storage areas stack and secure it.
As each piece of luggage is moved to the belt loader, it’s scanned again, so crews and the passenger can know where a bag is at any given moment.
“We all know that when you land at your destination, you want your stuff with you,” Decker said. “It’s always a good feeling when you’re flying to know, ‘Hey, my bag is with me — when I get to Des Moines or Orlando, my bag is going to be there with me.’”
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