Retrieving luggage at the baggage claim carousel

[Kanga1]

I have always gotten off the plane and straight to baggage claim to get my luggage. This trip (coming home) I will be on a separate plane from the rest of my family (using up FF miles.) I have to wait at the airport a good 5 hours before their flight gets there. I'd like a little time to visit the shops at the airport mall, but don't want to leave my luggage spinning around on the carousel in baggage claim. And of course once I go get my bags, there's no going back through to security to the shops.

Anybody know how long I have to look at the shops before my bags become "suspicious" and get taken away somewhere?

 

[DebbieB]

I have always gotten off the plane and straight to baggage claim to get my luggage. This trip (coming home) I will be on a separate plane from the rest of my family (using up FF miles.) I have to wait at the airport a good 5 hours before their flight gets there. I'd like a little time to visit the shops at the airport mall, but don't want to leave my luggage spinning around on the carousel in baggage claim. And of course once I go get my bags, there's no going back through to security to the shops.

Anybody know how long I have to look at the shops before my bags become "suspicious" and get taken away somewhere?

Are you talking about Pittsburgh? Usually once the carousel stops and no people are waiting, an airline employee picks up any luggage still on it and puts it to the side. Then the employee checks them against a list of missing luggage. Typically it sits there awhile, some airlines have a locked cabinet they put it in. I have had a couple cases where I got to my departing airport early and my luggage went on an earlier flight and was sitting there when I got to PIT. The big concern I had with that is someone could have picked it up and walked off with it, there is really no security in baggage claim.

What I would do is talk to the gate agent when you get off the plane and see if they can call over to baggage claim and let them know you will pick it up later.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I would never leave my bags unattended in the baggage claim area. Could the shopping at a domestic airline terminal be so great that it's worth losing your luggage?

 

[Kanga1]

I would never leave my bags unattended in the baggage claim area. Could the shopping at a domestic airline terminal be so great that it's worth losing your luggage?

No, you missed the point of my question. Maybe I didn't word it correctly. I'm not planning on spending the entire 5 hours shopping, I just wanted to know about how long I would have before my luggage would be loaded to the carousel and most of the passengers have retrieved their bags. It seems to me in the past that I've gotten to the carousel and waited forever for my bags to come down. I'd rather wait looking at something at the store then in baggage claim waiting for my luggage to drop down elbow to elbow with the rest of the passengers. I was just asking about how long I had from leaving the plane to when my bags would be the last ones spinning around on the carousel.

 

[LWQuestie]

It seems like forever when you are waiting in the crowd, but if you linger in the airmall for 30-45 minutes, you'll probably have one of the last bags coming off the carousel when you get there.

 

[Brian Noble]

Any chance you can carry on? (Your family members can check a bigger bag with some of what you'll have with you.) That solves your problem nicely.

 

[Kanga1]

Any chance you can carry on? (Your family members can check a bigger bag with some of what you'll have with you.) That solves your problem nicely.

Great idea, but no, it's a huge one! And they are at their limit too.

I'll figure on 30-45 minutes. Thanks!!