[AMcWhirter]

I am sure that some, if not many, of you will be interested to see this news.

It is expected to reopen on July 5. Not officially confirmed at time of writing.

It was reported earlier by Bloomberg but the latter has a strict paywall whereas Thestar.com is free to use.

https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2023/06/26/hong-kong-to-reopen-downtown-airport-check-in-service-next-month

4 users thanked author for this post.

Swissdiver, rjhcambs, AndrewinHK, AlanOrton1

[Woodpecker]

And about time too……although I suspect initially it may just be for the major airlines and/or alliances, with the rest still having to check-in at the airport.

Cwoodward can confirm, pre covid one could even check-in and handover luggage the day before, as long as it didn’t cross 24 hours before your flight. The only hitch was that before one checked in, the turnstile gate deducted the Airport Express fare, which meant one had to return to the Airport Express Station to get to the airport, rather than a car or taxi to the airport.

[christ]

@Woodpecker that is a good point as I am sure many may want to drop off their bags before a flight and then do things in the city but have already paid the fare (it looks like the set up has not changed).

I do think the airport express is excellent and say when you compare to Heathrow express (didn’t Gatwick have a similar think years ago at Victoria). I would definitely check in at IFC v getting a taxi all the way to the airport if I had many bags.

Unfortunately I do not think it helps for the return.

[Chris in Makati]

>> And about time too……although I suspect initially it may just be for the major airlines and/or alliances, with the rest still having to check-in at the airport.

That was always the case, even pre-Covid. Generally, you could only use the downtown check-in if you were flying one of the full-service carriers. With the budget airlines you had to take your bags to the airport independently.

I used to find it a useful service when I was able to use it though. If you had an evening flight out of HK you could check out of your hotel at noon, get rid of your bags at the IFC, and then you had the rest of the day bag-free to do as you wanted.

[norbert2008]

Yes I remember checking with AA at Gatwick and the huge check in area (now shops) at Paddington.

[MartynSinclair]

My biggest current fear about flying is checking in luggage. Missing bags still seems to be widespread at the moment & from press reports it appears to be a European and USA problem. I would not consider checking in any bags at the moment, even in a downtown check. I travel with hand baggage only. I am lucky, my regular hotels store clothes for me and anything extra needed is bought on arrival.

Trackers are great, but they generally only tell you where your bags are lost!

At least the HKG express has sufficient room for storing bags on board, quite a contrast when using the new Lizzy line where towards Heathrow you are just tripping over other peoples bags due a to total lack of storage.

[nevereconomy]

Unfortunately, after so many years of being one of my most common and popular destinations, I really feel comfortable spending any time there….

[AndrewinHK]

The Airport Express has been very busy the last few times I have taken it, one assumes staffing issues were part of the problem with restarting the in-town check-in, in any case, great news, we always used this service in the past. @Martyn, maybe we have been lucky but I think the majority still have no baggage issues, we certainly haven’t in any of our trips to Europe and beyond post covid, in fact I have only once had a bag not delivered, flying Iberia from Madrid to Rio, but credit to them, it was delivered to my hotel the following day. Slight difference between the Airport Express and the Elizabeth Line, Airport Express is almost exclusively for travelers, versus the Elizabeth Line which is predominantly a commuter train, so storage space of course is sacrificed for seats/standing areas, both I think are a great service, and both are operated by Hong Kongs MTR.

[cwoodward]

Having read this thread I thought back over past flights.
Slow baggage = yes about one in 4 flights (over 25 minutes)
Very slow LHR a few years back – BA from Dublin about 90 minutes – no one available to unload the aircraft !

Lost bags = sixteen years ago was the last time. Cathay to Italy. No bags (2) I and about 10 others.
I was driving to Florence. Next evening at 10 PM the bags arrived by taxi at my Hotel in Florence. They had been left in Hong Kong

Have I been lucky ? Or was it my choice of only travelling with quality airlines where possible.

[stevescoots]

I always have hold luggage except very short 1 or 2 day trips, 30+ years of travelling only had bags missing 3 times. BA LHR to HKG, bags arrived on same day later flight. AY HEL-LHR, bags arrived at home 2 days later. QR DOH to CAN, took a week to get the bag and then i had to travel 20KM to collect from the nearest train station, bag was smashed up as well.

[christ]

I feel I have always been lucky also .I would say HK as a whole is very efficient and virtually no wait time for baggage and that has been on both BA and Cathay (and BA is not generally efficient at baggage in many places and so I put it down to HK airport v the airline). Also Seoul and Bangkok have been very quick from Cathay.

Nonetheless even in COVID, I always had bags delivered from BA in Scotland and LHR. I found Scotland generally quick but LHR can be very slow (even from Amsterdam it was near an hour).

I do worry generally a little re bags but less so travelling with Cathay within Asia.

1 user thanked author for this post.

AndrewinHK

[AndrewinHK]

@Cwoodward, I am not sure airline choice has much to do with it, whilst airlines have the responsibility to load, unload and find your luggage if it goes missing, I suspect most of the problems are caused by airport infrastructure and staff who are mostly outsourced with baggage handling companies. Airlines have the short straw because they have to face customers’ wrath if and when things go wrong, but operationally they have contracts with either the airport or outsourced operators, so management of the process is not always immediately in their control. Having baggage service officers in place to manage issues is where airlines do have more control, most though are only direct airline employees at the airline’s hubs.

1 user thanked author for this post.

ASK1945

[cwoodward]

I forgot in my above that Turkish lost the families 3 bags 10 years back – no compensation forthcoming and no bags ever recovered. I have mentioned this in a ‘turkish’ thread some years back.
AinHK I believe that the choice of airline has a lot to do with ‘lost bags’ and as you mention some out-source to cheap handlers. There is a huge difference between airlines with say – Turkish having none and the better European and Asian airlines having very good service and controls. Thus the airline chosen makes a huge difference in my opinion.

[ASK1945]

This thread has moved completely off topic, nevertheless I will wade in.

CW wrote: “I believe that the choice of airline has a lot to do with ‘lost bags’ and as you mention some out-source to cheap handlers.”

We have “lost” bags three times in the last few years, twice with BA and once with Lufhansa. Fortunately we have received them all in due course. The most bizarre one was when we flew in from JFK on BA and our bags were not on the plane (we learnt in the baggage hall). We were told that they would be put on a later plane and would be delivered to us that evening.

They weren’t. We contacted BA the following morning, who told us that they had been delivered by a third party company and signed for. I asked for proof, which they said would follow (it didn’t). A short while later there was a ring on our doorbell, with an unknown man standing there with our bags. He told us he lived down the (same) road as us – about 400 metres away, with a totally different house number – and that they had been delivered the night before. He and his wife had been out and didn’t arrive home until the early hours. The bags had been accepted by their au-pair, who had gone to bed before they arrived home. He had traced us through the luggage labels, which in those days did carry our address (we stopped doing this sometime later, of course, for security reasons).

Obviously I thanked him and made a complaint to BA. They apologised and made us a donation of a few thousand Avios each.

I do speculate whether some of the permanently missing bags discussed earlier in this thread have been incorrectly delivered and the recipients have not been as honest as our long distance neighbour.

[MartynSinclair]

There is/was a docu documentary on sky (or similar) about lost bags being auctioned off as a gamble for those who purchased – I find it quite incredible airlines are allowed to do this…

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