Is luggage labeled as "fragile" intentionally handled with way less care in airports?

Nope. It makes no difference at all. They treat everything they get their evil little hands on with equal contempt and throw it around regardless.

Believe me. I've flown musical equipment all over the world for years and seen anything that might possibly break, get broken.

I've been involved with making the airline pay for cases they've broken (which they will), and tried to get them to pay for the contents of cases they've broken (which they won't).

The utter disrespect shown by baggage handlers to stuff that's clearly fragile is sickening. Any band with any sense pays for their gear to be freighted to avoid the awful treatment it gets on commercial flights.

The sticker means nothing to satans workers known as "baggage handlers" all you are doing by putting a fragile sticker on is acknowledging the item could break, and therefore if it does it's not the airlines fault.

I once met a guy backstage at a music festival in Norway who was a baggage handler. He told me with great glee about the time he threw a cello around and broke it and how funny he thought this was. I proceeded to give him many, many, shots of vodka, then got him kicked out of the backstage and his pass removed for being too drunk.

Karma bitch! I felt ruining his day was the least I could do on behalf of the poor cellist whose instrument got broken by this sub human.