The baggage chaos at Heathrow especially involving British Airways looks like its going to continue for a while. BA currently has around 22,000 bags looking for owners and it admits that with more luggage coming into the system each day it could be weeks before some people are reunited with their bags.
The problem seems to be two fold. A lot of the lost baggage belongs to passengers from the US and Europe transfering through Heathrow who have been allowed two pieces of hand luggage at their initial departure point but are only allowed to take one on board at Heathrow. The other piece has to be checked in and unfortunately according to British Airways ground services manager Mike Henwood ‘the real problem is a shortage of staff and equipment to move luggage around.’ BA is trying to use their office staff as emergency baggage handlers but how a major airline like them can have such a staff shortage coming into the summer months is ridiculous. This is also having a knock on effect on people coming through the arrivals hall according to The Times with pasengers having to wait 3-4 hours to get their bags.
Its a problem that doesn’t sound like its going to clear up any time soon, the only advice would be take just one piece of hand luggage and put anything of value in that, and expect the worst as regards your checked in luggage with BA.
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they are quite poor in responding.
had an account where my baggage was delayed when i was in UK. First, they agreed to sent to my friend’s place in London but after which they sent to Edinburgh where is my final stop.
To cut the story short, internally, they had a miscommunication and my baggage was delayed for like 3 days. Had no clothes, nothing except my laptop. I worn the same clothes for 2 days until i decided to buy just one piece as I am starting to smell, bearing in mind that stuff in UK is expensive.
anyway, when the baggage arrived, it was broken and i had to call them up for compensation. They took my call and replied but all they did was gave me a reference number. And asked me to emailed to the customer service in Singapore, where I am staying.
till now, 3 weeks, there is not even a reply from either Singapore or UK side.
When i reached home, i need to file for a report in order to claim for a travel insurance which i bought. So i contacted the representative from those UK, they asked me to contact my local representative. I found the number last week, called them up and they directed me to another address, so that i can write in.
the question is why cant they just provide me with the report directly? Surely they have a record of it.
Indeed, the service of BA is questionable.
My suitcase finally arrived 2 months later. I consider it a minor miracle because I was sure I would never see it again. I was extra fortunate that it wasn’t waterlogged and had nothing stolen from it (unlike what many others have experienced).
I also received a response back on my claim for reimbursement for my expenses due to the missing luggage. As someone else in this thread reported, they are (supposedly) sending me a check for their standard liability for missing luggage which is something like 1400 Euro. I’m not holding my breath tho.
It boggles my mind as to how these guys are staying in business. My wife and I joke now (bitterly) whenever we see a BA advertisement on tv.
These guys are absolutely the worst ever. I am amazed that we actually got the suitcase back after 2 months of no one knowing where it was. They delivered it to our neighbor’s house so I guess I am lucky we have honest neighbors!
We arrived on Aug. 30th after a great flight. I have to add that I have always gotten great treatment from British Airways and will continue to fly them.
On that note, however, we checked 6 bags and only 5 made it to Seattle. For some reason, one was left in Rome.
It is now on it’s way to our house and we will have it in a couple of hours.
How did this get done so quickly?
1) Keep calling them.
2) Stay in touch with your local airport baggage service. They have better contact than the 1-800-828-8144 number that you are given. This is just a call center and they are using the same computer program you are using.
3) Keep calling the 800 number though and continue to have them send out Tel-ex calls to all of the airports to keep them looking.
We found that as long as I kept them on the radar and kept pushing, they moved much quicker.
Good luck to the rest of you. I’ll have a Chianti for all of you still looking.
B.A. lost my luggage June 30th at the beginning of a two week multi country business trip. It is now September 7th and still no bags. I have faxed, emailed, called, sent certified letters, and reported to better business bureau. Just today I received a letter from the BBB with a response from B.A. stating they were sorry for the inconvenience but they are sending $200 for the delayed bag. I am so frustrated because even though I continually contact them telling them otherwise, they think they returned the bag to me!!!! They also had included a two night hotel stay in london with my booking which they will not honor even though I have all confirmation #’s. I am now out several thousand dollars and a wasted expensive business trip.
I would love to join in a class action suit. Does anyone know how to go about this?
In BA literature, it states that every effort will be made to find luggage and get it to us, and this is simply not true, easy to prove and a breach of contract.
It’s funny. BA contacted me after i sent the letter to them.
When contacted, they mentioned that they would sent me 35pounds for compensation. This is for the clothing and toiletries stuff.
And they said they would change the zipper caused by their negligence.
I was sure unhappy as when i contacted the representative when i was in UK, they told me they would compensate me money to buy a new one for my baggage. I roughly quoted them the price but now they would not honor their words.
They refused to honor what they said.
I was unhappy and i refused to sign anything concerning the release against BA unless they replace a new baggage for me.
it is not that i am after some sort of money scheme or trying to ripe them off. But understanding that when you are there for a holiday, it is ruined by their negligence.
and all the troubles created when your baggage is not with you.
What I am disappointed is that they did not HONOR their words.
not so much as getting the money or compensation.
I am glad that Michael Martin finally and surprisingly received his bag after 2 months. My bag is still missing since July 3 (9 weeks ago). Think about all the struggles and inconveniences British Airways created due to their negligence and irresponsible manner. Shame of them! Michael, I am jealous at you and hopefully mine will show up as a miracle.
My family and I traveled on June 27th through Heathrow en route to Barcelona for a cruise. We checked 4 bags and none arrived although a bag for another person arrived with one of our bag tags. Similar story to everyone else about trying to get through. We were on a Disney cruise that contacted BA three times a day via email plus called each day. In our case persistance didn’t pay off in the short term. We heard a different story each time we spoke to someone. They had located our bags, they were sent to Milan and would be shipped to Rome etc. We spent our whole vacation (with 2 kids) with no luggage.
We have received three of our four bags (on July 28th, July 30th and September 6th) so there is hope. Two of our bags were damaged but the contents were intact and undamaged. The tracer only reflects that we received 2 bags. One of our bags contained a purse that didn’t belong to me. When I brought it to the attention of BA they told me to feel free to ship it myself. The lack of customer service is unbelievable to me. I won’t fly BA ever again.
Our bags did not make it out of Heathrow on June 1st, 2007. The only positive was that it was easy going through customs with no baggage coming back to the U.S. Two weeks later one bag showed up, at which time BA closed our file, even though we were still waiting for our other bag. 32 days later, bag #2 arrived completely soaked and everything mildewed - it stunk! Now when we try to file a claim, they want us to show proof of where the bags had been. Are you kidding me - that’s what we’d like to know!! Do you know that BA has lost 550,000 bags just this year! They use to be a fantastic airlines. We are sooo disappointed. Our bags were lost both ways on our trip to Europe. We aren’t planning on checking baggage in again if at all possible!
BRITISH AIRWAYS becomes worst and worst…they lost my baggages on July 3 - 10 weeks ago, I have a file# that I have been using to check at tel# (800)828-8144, all they could tell me is “sending another message to airport”, but after about the 20th call today, a supervisor named Shelly Joseph told me that my file# is not pulling out and there is nothing BRITISH AIRWAY can do now, period. Are they crazy? Now, they just delete your file and do nothing!! Is this a legal business way running thru the whole world? This is just too easy for British Airways to treat the customer. WE WOULD NEVER FLY WITH BRITISH AIRWAYS AGAIN.
British Airways’ luggage process is in a state of complete disarray.
Today, an outsourced Indian call representative answered the phone. (Apparently, BA has now begun to outsource its calls.)
Last week, a class action law suit was filed in the US against BA. Links to the attorneys who will be handling the matter (http://www.hbsslaw.com) will be posted shortly. (Currenlty their website is down due to the overwhelming traffic.)
Hello everyone, I do sympathise with you all on your various ordeals with BA, and at the same time I want to thank whoever started this website. You don’t know how much unforseen trouble you have saved me. I was just at the brink of clicking purchase on BA’s website for two tickets for my wife and I to visit Nigeria from Atlanta, GA in December for the christmas holiday. Somehow, something propmpted me to research reviews on BA to see what people have to say about them. It is a shame to say that from all the reviews on BA that I read, both from this website and others, over 95% of them are negative.
Thanks once again for saving me the trouble. I think I will stick to KLM that I have always flown with.
I pray everyone find their missing luggages.
Have a good time in Nigeria Stan.
I travelled from Australia via Hong Kong to London Heathrow and then a BA connecting flight to Manchester. My plane arrived at Heathrow at 6.30am and my flight wasn’t until 11.05am but I wasn’t allowed to take an earlier flight as I had checked in baggage so had to hang around for 4 hours. Got to Manchester and my baggage wasn’t on the flight. This was Fri 9th Nov. After phoning BA tracing service every day still no bag. They did answer the phone promptly & were very helpful and just said they had notified Heathrow who were looking for it. They didn’t look very far. A passenger arriving at Heathrow yesterday evening phoned me to say did I know my bag was still in the baggage hall at Heathrow terminal one on carousel 12. He said it stood out because it was the only bag there so he went over to check it. So much for the security at Heathrow. Could have been a bomb in it. Phoned BA to tell them where it is and they said they would send a message to Heathrow. Phoned again this morning and they said a flight had just arrived but they can’t confirm it’s definitely on it. It will take 5 hours to go through customs anyway. What!!! Have to phone back later today for more information.
Hi, I was on my honeymoon in August and when I returned to Glasgow, my bag didn’t turn up. Since then it has been lost and they have told me that they can’t find it. It was last traced in London and missed the flight it was meant to be put on. I am completely devastated as you would image since I had spent a lot of money on new clothes, etc, and these are all in my suitcase. BA are a complete disgrace and I do not plan on flying with them again. The people you speak to are completely useless too, to them you are just another notch on the phone line!!!!
I think BA did an excellent job in retrieving my delayed luggage. Whenever I called the staff were incredibly helpful and polite they are a credit to the company. I just wanted to let you all know that you should have faith in BA. In general things in life never run smoothly and BA are not the only airline who delay luggage. Although it was not a nice experience to have my bags go missing i must say the help and comfort i received when calling the wonderful staff help me deal with it all.
Having just returned from the US travelling both ways on B.A. all I can say is what a fiasco T5 was!!! Day one of the new terminal you think they would have had some clue as to what they were doing - WRONG… NO!
We were delayed for 2 1/2 hours on the plan as there were issues with the baggage being loaded. Eventually the pilot anounced that we were departing and all baggage had been loaded.
After an 11 1/2 hour flight (plus the 2 1/2 hrs sitting on the plan) we arrived. However, just before landing the pilot made an anouncement. Unfortunately there was a ’substantial’ amount of luggage that had not arrived and he had only just been informed. Funny though how they know when to to off load a bag if the passenger isn’t on board.
One of the stewars mentioned that we may want to keep the little bag they give you with the toothbrush, socks etc. just vefore this anouncement was made - perhaps he knew something the pilot never, hmmm.
We were in the minority of lucky ones thankfully. Two weeks later upon our return to T5, it was still a fiasco. Even the staff working here admit it. Bags everywhere piled up right back from when we left.
BA should be ashamed of the service they offer - I would never preferably opt to fly with BA again.
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