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Many airlines now give passengers the option of printing their own checked baggage tags at airport kiosks. The travelers are then expected to remove the tag from its adhesive and correctly loop it to the handle on their luggage.
(This is a nightmare for those of us who are clumsy — and always make the baggage tag into a crinkled mess.)
“You’re Doing It Wrong… Can’t You Read?”
Someone on Reddit posted about their alleged encounter with a Delta Air Lines employee at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW). The person says they are “aggressively a non-Karen.” So, let’s assume it’s a female for clarity.
She had a first class ticket and went to the Sky Priority line.
As I go to enter the line, a Delta rep puts up her hand and says, “Stop.” Of course I stop. She says two words: “self tag” and points to the self tag kiosk. “Oh, I need to go to kiosk?” “Yes,” she says. I do as I’m told. Never seen this before, but sure. I do self checkout at the grocery store sometimes. I guess this is a new thing. All good.
She went to a kiosk, printed the bag tag, and tried to “make sense of how to put it on the bag.”
You’re not the only one, sister.
She adds that she has “some hand disability stuff and some vision stuff I deal with and I can’t figure out how to do it right. On the back of the tag are a bunch of steps on how to apply the tag to the bag, but I’m terrible with [spatial] relations. It’s a blur.”
Her attempt at self-tagging her bag wasn’t successful: “Half is peeled off and the other half is hanging down.”
She does the walk of shame back to the Delta rep, who “stares at me like I’m the biggest idiot she’s ever seen. Eyes literally rolling.”
Here’s where the tension cranks up a few notches.
I ask her while I’m smiling: “Can I just bring this tag to the counter and they can help me put it on?” She glares. “No. You need to do it.” Um. Ok. “Can you help me? I can’t seem to figure it out,” again smiles from me to her. She answers. “No.” No other words. Ok. Uh. I guess I’ll keep trying to do it myself? I make a loop of it and just stick it together like that. I smile and shrug at her. “Is this ok?” She glares and says. “You’re doing it wrong.” I ask nicely again, “Can you help me?” She shakes her head; she can’t. “The instructions are on the back and you are still doing it wrong.” I try to break the tension with a joke and a smile. I don’t want to give her my whole medical history so I go self depreciating. “I must not be very bright, I’m sorry, can you help me.” Her eyes roll again.
“No.” We stare at each other. As I said, I made a loop with it. Stuck the ends together. I know it’s wrong, but I couldn’t get it right. “Can I go in the line now though?” She waves me forward, but with a death stare. “It’s wrong. Can’t you read?”
Yikes! I really want to believe this part was made up. This is plain mean.
I am humiliated and slump forward to the counter, where I apologize for existing and ask the woman there if she can please help me. I explain the woman directing traffic told me I was all wrong, and said she couldn’t help, but I don’t Karen or yell or anything, mostly because I’m stunned silent. I repeat three times, “I must not be very bright,” and the desk agent takes pity on me and fixes it kindly and I’m on my way.
I can’t stop thinking about this. Am I literally the worst person who flew today in America? I have never felt so ashamed and berated and embarrassed while flying.
Tag: Who’s It?
I am not very graceful or dextrous. The blind and deaf dog down the street could create an art project that would look like Mona Lisa compared to what I’ve done with baggage tags I’ve tried affixing to luggage.
My wife, however, is many things: funny, smokin’ hot, kind, a wonderful mother, and most importantly: a master at looping baggage tags. She usually bails me out of these situations.
But on the rare times I check a bag while traveling alone, I usually print out the tag, stand in line — and attempt to put the tag on myself. (When I fly Delta, the Sky Priority line proctors usually spot fools like me and voluntarily tag the bags themselves. Hey, I’ll take the eye roll!)
I understand the concept of self-tagging is to speed things up. You don’t want those lanes to become “standard” check-in.
But I don’t know why the Delta agent in this Reddit post couldn’t have just done that. Or showed her how to do it. Or not been such a bully (allegedly). If she insisted on saying something, a terse “I’ll let you in the line just this once, but please use the agent assistance line next time” would’ve sufficed. (However, all we have is the original poster’s account of the story. It’s entirely plausible that some details are missing.)
Perhaps the kiosks were especially busy and the Delta agent was overwhelmed. But from a customer standpoint, there’s no excuse for this. (Airline employees: would you please share your thoughts in the Comments section below?)
And Delta might want to hope that the woman didn’t expressly tell the unhelpful agent about her disability. That might create even more headaches.
Final Approach
Not everyone is on board with the self-tagging baggage system. Personally, I’m not too fond of it. I don’t think it’s beneath me or anything — I am too much of a klutz to get it right consistently.
But should exceptions be made when incidents like the one on Reddit come up? Or should those folks be made to stand in the agent assistant line?
And what do you think about the self-tagging process?
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I tried the self-tag once and I failed. Ended up pulling the entire back off and then the agent had to stick the Sky Priority tag in there anyhow and wasn’t real thrilled about my self-tag job (oh well). Like you and the Reddit poster, I’m kinda clumsy with those tags and cant see well in low light. I won’t do it again.
I hope I never get a gate agent like the one in Detroit, but if I’ll make sure to get their name and pass it on up the food chain. How effective that will be, who knows, but if enough people complain about the same person, something is bound to happen.
The first time flyer or someone not too sharp that hasn’t flown in 5 years could have trouble. I know someone that hasn’t flown since a European trip 9 years ago
I always take the tag up to the counter and have them put it on. Never a problem. I believe firmly the reason is because I am a man. Women are programmed to want to fix men, they can’t help it. Don’t believe me watch any commercial on TV with a man in it and there will be woman fixing the man’s ineptitude. Hope I made a spelling error in this post so that a woman can fix my difficulty in posting a comment.
I have had to do this with United! It does not help or save anytime for the fliers. You have stand in line to get to a kiosk scan boarding pass get bag tag. Stand in line to have agent check your ID and look at bag tag( you hopefully put on correctly)scan it then you take it to another area to get put in a pile or conveyor belt!! Would it not be better to wait in one line at counter and get ID check , bag tag scanned and then on belt in one area vs 3 or 4?? Now Delta is doing the same thing not thrilled.
I did not. With United’s new Bag Drop Shortcut, you just scan your boarding pass and the machine prints it out behind the counter and the attendant checks your ID and puts the tag on.
I prefer to self tag my bag – it allows me the opportunity to double check that my bag is tagged correctly. Do it once and you have it figured out. Next I expect someone to complain because they can’t lower their tray table or fasten their seat belt.
Delta has a serious Customer service issue here that needs to be addressed. Assuming everything the person says are true, there are all sorts of issues with what happened. First, they claimed to be first (read Business) class. That makes the person a premium customer. Whether they paid for a business class ticket or used miles, customer loyalty earns money to pay that agents salary. I’ve seen what happens like this, the agent basicly stands there and watches as people do their job for them. And this agent is the epitome of lazy in that 20 years ago the agent would have been standing at the terminal checking in the customer, printing the tag, applying it, and putting it on the carousel. I mean how hard is it to help a customer.
I have a difficult time believing that the agent was “prohibited” from helping the customer. Its more likely they just didn’t want to, and there was no supervisor around to catch them failing to do their job. At most, the agent was maybe on restricted duty and could not lift the bag. Maybe even not able to bend over to help. But the agent could have told the customer and sought another agent to help. So, the agents’ actions are inexcusable, and Delta needs to take that agent to task. Their WHOLE JOB is to assist the customers. Why would they be standing there otherwise? With the help that agent was, they may have just not had one there.
I am guessing that the agents are union, because I think the Northwest agents were, and DTW was a Northwest hub. But unless the agreement specificaly prohibits the agent from doing so, that should not be an issue. There are work rules, then there are policies. If the agents job was simply to give instructions and no more, then there was likely an agent to assist with putting the tags on doing the job seprately. But the agent failed to even give the customer proper instructions, so even if all they were supposed to do was give out information. they failed to do their job in either instructing the passenger, or directing the passenger to help.
But I go back to the fact that this was a business class passenger. The customer stated “a Delta rep puts up her hand and says, “Stop.” Of course I stop. She says two words: “self tag” and points to the self tag kiosk. “Oh, I need to go to kiosk?” “Yes,”” So at what point is the ONLY option to self tag? Especially for business class? keep in mind that Delta charges $30 for the first bag and $40 for the second. If I’m paying to check my bag, I’m going to an agent to have them check me in, print the tag, put it on, and put my bag on the belt for me. Screw doing it myself. I’m paying for the service, I’m going to expect them to provide it. Having to self tag while paying a fee is kind of like Walmart telling me not only do I have to check myself out, but I also have to pay to check myself out. Absurd. I’ll go elsewhere.
And finally, that passenger should not be required at all to do self-check in or the baggage at all. There should be a dedicated line that does all of that for her. But the passenger also seemed to be inexperienced as a traveling passenger, so I wonder if they were business class, and if they were, if they knew they didn’t need to use the self check kiosk, or if they told the agent they were business class. There is information missing here. But the agent was about as helpful as a rock with a sign on it. Delta would do well to look into this and take corrective action.
Yeah, if I have status with an airline, or flying on a first class ticket, I want a person. United tried that in Houston and I went to the person checking ID’s
I don’t see why the first agent was downright rude. There’s no excuse for that. Not everyone can do things like tagging their own bag. That’s just how it is.
As soon as you said “Detroit”, my memory was jolted. My first post-pandemic trip was ATL-DTW. On the outbound from ATL, doing the self tagging was made a breeze by the attendant who was friendly and willing to help. On the return from DTW, I was having a bit of difficulty so I waited in line and took it to the counter partially-tagged. The gentleman behind the counter said “No, you have to do it” and waved me to the side and then helped the next person. There seemed to be a whole undercurrent of surliness with the DTW staff. I don’t know if these are embittered NWA people or new hires who don’t know better.
Another issue I encountered was attaching a yellow Sky Priority tag, since the kiosks don’t issue that. After the unpleasant experience at DTW, I now stand in line to check my bags, where the tags are neatly attached and include the Sky Priority tag.
One of these days the rest of the world will adapt the new Japanese bag tag which is like those self-stick envelopes. No need to peel and you just put the ends together and they stick.
Self tagging your own luggage is simply a way for the airlines to eliminate personnel. In many airport around the world after you self tag your bag, you send your suitcase through an unmanned bag belt where the bag must be placed in such a way that the tag is place upwards and can be read by the machine. If not the bag does not flow forward. This is used for all classes of service – first class or coach. If you think this “new” System here is confusing, wait til you have someone place their bag on the belt and walks away while their bag is rejected. No one can proceed until an agent comes along and flips the bag. I have seen lines of 20+ frustrated folks regularly. Delta’s and United’ nee system is their half butted attempt to move in that direction
As to the reader who said he likes the self tag system so he can corroborate the tag to destination, obviously never checked the tag previously when the agent handed the bag tag to him. Lame
As a Diamond 3 million miler, I feign stupidity and always have the agent issue the bag tag. He/she knows it and they play along. It is my weak way to force them to provide service to a regular customer.
And If I run into an attitude, I take note of name and time and report the agent to one of the executives listed in Elliott Advocacy. They always respond and I am sure it does flow downhill. I have been told by a Delta insider how the regular complaint portal works. Weak at best. Reporting the complaint to an executive may be hitting the thumb tack with the sledge, but it does elicit a response.
Bob – You are full of [it] with this comment – “As to the reader who said he likes the self tag system so he can corroborate the tag to destination, obviously never checked the tag previously when the agent handed the bag tag to him. Lame” – There is nothing “lame” about my comment. I have checked bags previously with an agent and they put the WRONG tag on my bag, causing it to be sent to a different city. I never had a agent “hand a bag tag to me”. Keep your smart mouthed answers to yourself.
I fly out of Atlanta where you have to self tag. It’s ridiculous!!! As a SkyTeam Elite Plus member about 50% percent of the time they never yellow tag your luggage! And if you do say anything to them about it, they will give you an attitude and tell you that it says priority on it. It’s a small black bar that says “priority”. Again ridiculous! They keep diluting the SkyTeam Elite Plus experience!!
We do one or two international trips per year. The self tag thing is a big confusing unless you’ve done it repeatedly and and learned how to peel off only partly, take the receipt, get it on the handle just right, etc. Am sure I’ll screw it up again on our next flight months from now. And, likely will have another rude agent (yes, my last experience was similar to the person in this article.) However, I WILL take my time and ignore the person in line behind me who will surely be literally breathing down my neck. And if someone from the airline starts barking instructions, I’ll just hand it to them. I’m getting better at ignoring rude and not very intelligent airline people who think I should know everything they know – as well as other passengers who think I should be in as big of a hurry as them. There was a time when flying was generally an agreeable part of traveling. Now it’s barely tolerable. Either way, airline employees mostly determine the air-travel experience.
Why isn’t there an option to either have agent apply tags or passenger apply their tags? Think about it. What if you have a mother with a 3 year old a two year old and a baby . I think most people can see how many different scenarios could occur. I have to agree with the majority messages on Reddit. And why hasn’t the agent in the original post let go from Delta? Do they not realize what a disaster that would be? I am a retire CCR nurse please do not get me started………..