When a flight reaches its gate, the airport assigns a carousel in the baggage hall and publishes the number to the arrivals boards. Airports call it the belt, the carousel, the claim or the reclaim; airlines and APIs call it baggage claim. It is the last piece of information a flight produces, and for anyone meeting a passenger it is the most useful one.
Why it matters
The time between wheels-down and a passenger walking out of arrivals is mostly baggage. A passenger with hand luggage is out ten minutes after the gate; one with a checked bag is out thirty to forty-five minutes later at a large airport. The belt number does not shorten that wait, but its appearance is the clearest signal that the wait has begun, and it lets a message say "bags on belt 7" instead of "landed".
When it appears
Usually a few minutes after the gate arrival, occasionally before landing at airports that pre-assign, and sometimes never: not every airport publishes belts to the feeds, and domestic flights at small airports often have one hall and no number. Absent is normal and does not mean the bags are lost.
In FlightByte
| Field or event | Meaning |
|---|---|
arrival.baggage | The belt number as a string, or null when the airport has not published one. |
arrival.baggage.changed | Fired when the belt is assigned or reassigned, with from and to. |
After the aircraft reaches the gate, FlightByte keeps polling every five minutes for 45 minutes specifically to catch the belt, then sends subscription.completed. A subscription that includes arrival.baggage.changed in its events will receive the belt in that window; one that does not will still see it in the flight snapshot of any later event. The airport transfers page shows a message built on it.