British Airways still snowed under with lost baggage

Dear Chris:

I think in this photo i can see my bags; the resolution is not so great, but they appear to be just to the left of the guy in the pictures. They are very obvious bags; cream coloured with a flower print, rolling duffles. Could you possibly send me a higher resolution picture, so i can determine if that is a box or my bag?
Further, if you have any other photos that you could post or send as your team takes them, it may help people in identifying their bags, especially when they are readily identifiable.
Sincerely
Smita

Smita that’s the only picture I have. Hope you get your bags soon and they haven’t been sent to Milan for clearing by BA.

We lost three pieces of luggage on a flight on June 27 - it is 21 days. We had to endure a trip to Paris and the surrounding countryside with no support from British Air. How do we ever find these bags? Does British Air care. It is unconscionable to do business this way. Either hire more staff or do business in a smaller way that you can handle. You have ruined a long awaited vacation that cost much money. We never saw all we had planned to do and now we must use our time to run around to stores to replace clothing and other items not allowed on the plane. Our time is as valuable as the items and we are losing on both ends.

Hi,
Just to let you know that my mother has arrived yesterday without her two bags they told her that they will be bringing the bags to her in 2-3 days but after reading all this, I certainly do not have much hope. I am thinking about flying to Heathrow myself and looking for her bags. do you think they will allow that?
I would like to have all major news channel do an investigative story on this if everybody who has been through this bitter experience can join together.
Thank you very much.

The worst thing is that what ever you do to contact B.A. you will find it impossible. If ever you get in contact with someone, he/she will give you the exact opposite answer to the answer you got last time you were in contact. Why doesn’t British Airways put something up on their website. Why doesn’t their luggage tracker work? - I have recieved 1 pcs of luggage, which you cannot see. 2 Pcs are placed in Milan - only one of them can be seen on the web… As a B.A. Employee said: “don’t fly British Airways if you want your luggage…” - Great!!!!

Sue, I doubt they’d let you search for the bags and they’ve probably moved them somewhere else for clearing. With school summer holidays starting this week, Heathrow is going to be busier than ever and not somewhere you’d want to be.

My sister and I spent a once in a lifetime 12 day vacation in Italy with no luggage the entire trip thanks to British Airway. From bad to worse- our return flight had a connection thru Heathrow terminal 4 on July 3rd. Thank goodness we we able to get home on wonderful Virgin Atlantic. Now, one month later-still no original bag. This is not due to the security threat issues- not one helpful person at British Airways- no updates on tracing website- no one over answered phone on 800 #.

Won’t go through the horror story — just say “SAME EXPERIENCE AS ALL THE OTHER COMMENTS.” Two lost bags going through Heathrow on June 27th.

Does anyone know how to get the “Lost Luggage Claim Form” on the U.S. British Air website. There is one on the British site (for the UK and Ireland) but not on the U.S.

Called the U.S. “800″ number in NY and get nothing but a long long long long hold — no answer.

Again, would appreciate help to get the U.S. claim form from a website.

I know — don’t say it — an eternal optomist!!! lol

Thanks

Bruce,
I filled in the form for my lost luggage here: http://www.britishairways.com/travel/custrelform/public/en_gb

not sure if it is correct as I haven’t gotten any response but you can choose USA as a country.

Well! I guess we got lucky. My Mom got her two bags delivered today. I found the status change on the baggage tracer last night and called the delivery service in the morning. Both bags were wet but only one of them had some dampness and some water inside but no real damage. Medicines and all others belongings are okay. I wish each and everyone of you best of luck in getting your bags delivered fast. Pray hard, because when everything else fails, the higher power is your only source of hope and he will never fail you. Thanks to Chris for having this wonderful website and thanks to all those who were willing to join me in the class action lawsuit. keep all your options open.

My bag was supposed to transfer from American Airlines to British Airways on June 29 and has not been seen since. I spent 2 1/2 weeks in Israel with no bag, no contents (which contained professional video gear that I could not carry on board), and empty promises from BA. I am back in the US now and continuing to hassle with them. All we hear is a messianic vision of Terminal 5. I would gladly join in a class action suit against BA!

I flew from Dulles to Oslo via Heathrow before the weekend, and due to delays lost my connecting flight at Heathrow (I am still convinced that had they asked the passengers to remain seated and let me off the plane first, i would have made it to the original flight.) When I arrived in Oslo on a later flight, I only got 1 of my 2 suitcases. I needed to go through customs before checking in for my onward flight, and so I had absolutely no time to stand in the long, long queue in front of BA’s service partner, Servisair. in Oslo. Nor could I call, as the batteries of my cell phone was nearly dead, and the recharger was…in the suitcase that was lost.

I got my parents to call, which they did, all evening and the next morning, when they finally got through. They did not get a file reference number of the sort you need to trace your lost luggage on BA and Servisair’s websites. WHen I have tried to call to give additional information about my suitcase, I have been put on hold, or even simply told to check the progress (for which you need the file reference/world tracer number!) on their website and disconnected. I have written emails to both British Airways and Servisair without response.

My worry is this, from all sources I have seen on the net, they have huge number of luggage lost, and not enough people to deal with it. They spend more effort to minimize their insurance payouts than they do in actually getting the luggage to its rightful owner. They must find it cheaper to just auction of the suitcases at RF Greasbys (greasbys.co.uk) than make sure we get our souvenirs, clothes, gifts etc back. I will never fly British Airways after this.

DON’T GIVE UP HOPE !!!!

Our two bags checked in Sacramento on June 27th finally ARRIVED on July 23rd. My wife and I went through an entire Princess cruise starting in Copenhagen without anything but what we had worn on the plane and a few things we bought to try and get by.

Bags were in perfect condition — not wet and nothing missing.

They were sent FedEx from the British Air lost luggage center in Milan, Italy. Of course, the tracer website has never been updated to reflect that they had even been found.

Good luck to the rest of you !!!

Bruce

I have been having this experience for a while now and firmly believe it is not weather or any of the other excuses but sabotage by the baggage people in Heathrow who will lose their jobs when T5 opens. Only solution - fly with someone else who does not have such stupid employees.

British Airways lost one suitcase on my trip over to Europe in early July (2007) and a replacement suitcase on my trip home in mid-July. The second one showed up, but the first one is still missing after 3 weeks. They gave me a phone number to call, but no one ever answers the phone. Like everyone else here, British Airways single-handedly ruined my trip. I’ve concluded the following: 1) never, ever fly British Airways, 2) avoid at all costs flying through Heathrow Airport, and 3) if you do have to fly through Heathrow, make connections in someplace like Lagos so you can fly a more reputable airline like Air Nigeria.

I can’t believe I didn’t read this blg before teaveling to Scotland late last month. Upon arriving in Glasgow from London Heathrow on a 10 day golfing vacation with seven other pals, BA coulen;t find our baggage. To make along story short, we arrived on a Friday, June 29th and our bags finally arrived Tuesday night, July 3rd. What made matters absoultely unacceptable is BA NEVER answerd my calls. I made over 50 calls to the baggage claim number I was given with my copy of the claim and all I heard was, “Due to the level of calls, we are unable to take your call. Please call back”! Their web site was even worse. Not once, was the site updated even when our bags were finally delivered, 5 days later!
To not answer the phone is unacceptable customer service. BA obvioulsy doesn’t care. This is one of any reasons why the government should NEVER own anything!

Converesly, on my trip home to Los Angeles, American Airlines lost my golf clubs. The difference was each time I called I actually spoke to an American, in America who told me they dodn’t know where the bag was. It’s amazing how mush less angry I was when I at least got to speak to a human being! The bag did show up 3 days later!
I will try, at all costs, to NEVER fly BA again.

This site has been of some comfort to me, I feel I have a support group out there now. Class action you say? I’d support that!!
I traveled on June 28th to Madrid to start my Masters course. It is July 25th July today and still no bag and no change on the tracer information. New clothes, new books, chargers, clothes, shoes; you know the story…..
I read that someone got their bags back today after 3 weeks. That’s great and gives us all some hope. I’m hanging in there still. The eternal optimist.
GA.

There is a much simpler solution than yours - don’t fly BA under any circumstances!

We were caught up in the chaos at Terminal 4 on July 15. In the end we missed our flight because we couldn’t get anywhere near check-in due to the crowds. Even if we had I know we’d still be waiting for our bags. Made a last minute switch to Air Canada from Terminal 3 at considerable cost.

Tried to cancel BA but couldn’t get through. Eventually an Air Canada agent connected me to a BA agent twice. As soon as I said I wished to record a cancellation of my flight the BA agent simply hung up, both times.

Great service!

Ditto - DO NOT DESPAIR! In terms of timing my experience was almost identical to Gary’s - my case was “lost” flying out of Heathrow on June 29th, sent to Milan by lorry on July 4th and there the online trail ran cold. It was actually delivered to my home address this morning although the bag status on the website still states “tracing continues”. The contents of the bag was intact, but very damp and mouldy. I managed to get through to the baggage tracing number three times, and even called the sorting warehouse in Milan once (don’t ask!). They were quite sympathetic but insisted that there was no further record of the bag. It is disconcerting reading about “unclaimed” BA luggage being sent to auction after three months, etc. What should be happening is a complete overhaul of the process - BA and other airlines should state their compensation policy upfront and in no uncertain terms when purchasing a ticket, there should be a law against providing baggage tracing and claims helplines that are left unstaffed, there should be more feedback to the public e.g. photos of the bags being sorted in Milan, a daily update on the bag tally, etc. Even a simple apology would be nice.

Re: e-mail above, sorry meant to say my experience was similar to Bruce’s.

Oh, if only I read this blog before booking seats on BA. We’re annual travellers with BA and have Spent a fortune with this airline. Flying from Heathrow, Terminal 4 to Sydney last Friday 20th July with my husband and 2 young children, we were grounded along with 270 passengers at Bangkok due to engine failure. No luggage, delayed then contradictary info from BA staff, 2 days spent at the airport hotel (given ’smoking’ rooms), waiting for seats to become available, offered allowance for essentials after much badgering, eventually given down-graded seats home, via Tokyo with 7 hours in transit. Husband needing medical attention due to broken elbow while on holidays - temporarily patched in a rural hospital - monolithic cast from finger tips to shoulder. Minimal effort from BA staff to address our needs. One woman requested urgent repatriation as her diabetic husband’s insulin supply would only last till 5pm the next day. The BA manager’s reply was to ask if he could hold on till the following morning. Gobsmacking. Home now having left Heathrow 4 days ago. 1 suitcase has arrived - contents completely wet and mouldy. British Airways - you suck.

I’m glad I found this website. At least I’m not the only one who feels frustrated and unsupported by the airlines (both Qantas and BA). On my recent trip to the UK, my luggage didn’t arrive in Manchester with me, but after two days it was delivered via courier. However, when I returned to Australia on June 30th 2007, my bag went missing again, and 28 days later, there is still no sign of it. Initially, the status on the Worldtracer website was ‘ located to be confirmed’ and has since been changed to ’still searching’. The phone numbers I have been given for Qantas Lost Baggage are either busy, go straight to a message bank, or ring out. I actually did hold on for 33 minutes one day, only to be told they had nothing to tell me other than what was on the Worldtracer website.

Flew on July 28th on BA from Frankfurt to L.A. through London Heathrow. Big mistake. They screwed it up from the very beginning, because the moron at the ticket gate in Frankfurt wouldn’t issue our pre-paid tickets for the connecting flight in London we missed our layover to the US. They put us up for the night and flew us the next day (losing a day off our vaction), but then they lost 1 of our 2 suitcases. It hasn’t been seen since. All my clothes, toiletries, my video camera and videos from my wedding and honeymoon - all gone. Had to buy all new things, had no video camera for our family reunion, and of course the tapes from my wedding are irreplaceable. Silly me for actually trusting British Airways with actually delivering my bags!

Similar experiences as the rest of you. Long wait to talk to a person, and when you do, it’s always the same thing - excuses but no actual status of ANYTHING. Web tracker never updated, etc.

Not to mention they did NOT call forward to my hotel in the states after they rescheduled my flight like they said they would - so I was charged by the hotel for the night we were supposed to arrive. And when they rescheduled us, they removed us from our RETURN flight (which was also on a pre-paid ticket) - we weren’t even in their system when we went to return to Germany and we were lucky to get on the plane, I had to show them a copy of my itinerary to prove to them I had a pre-paid electronic ticket!

Class action lawsuit? I’m in! Where do I find details?

I read these comments, and we are not alone, all of these are correct and we are in the same pool, I never have my luggage back after July 3. Like everybody else, it’s hopeless, made tons of calls and all they answered is “will telex to Milan” and that’s all they can do. Is there a organization here in USA who can put all of us together to deal with British Airway? Secondly just never fly with British Airway and never to Heathrow again!!

Why is BA allowed to get away with this? I’ve just got back from Rome minus a bag (as was the case for a large number of people on my flight and the next flight in from Rome).

The BA experience has been shocking. Firstly the total incompetance of the local staff at LHR whose job is to deal with lost/damaged baggage. If you picked some random people off the street they could not have appeared more clueless.

Eventually we filled in the lost baggage form and have the pleasure of being able to check the “World Tracer” which informs me that “Tracing continues”. I’ve called the telephone number and managed to speak to someone - a miracle - but only to be told that they don’t know where the missing bags are.

Had I paid £1 for the flight with Ryanair I would have to accept that poor service goes hand in hand with cut price. However BA are a full price airline - £200 for a Rome return - and I expect a full service for my money.

I’m with Angela - NEVER FLY BA AGAIN. The only way they will get the message is when people vote with their feet. Also tell everyone you know about your experience.

48 days and counting in LOST Luggage Hell. i am home in Denver after 45 days on a work assignment in Kenya & Tanzania. BA lost everything. I’ve lost thousands of dollars of precious clothes, electronics, and work, and over 20 hours of trips to the airport searching, waiting at the counter, and being disappointed. Twice they said “your bag is here.” Then, the countless phone calls, 90% not answered, 100% not helpful.

BA - aka BAD AIRLINES is the WORST airline worst customer service i could ever imagine. From Nairobi to London to Canada to US, NO ONE has ever helped me find my bag. The web site has never been updated. i’ve been told “your bag is in Rome, Nairobi, London, not Rome, we don’t know, we’ll call you, we found it, it’s here. . .”

Today, back in the US, Sunday night, a nice woman in Denver’s BA counter PROMISED she would research my file, and that lots of mistakes had been made. She promised a call in 24 hours. it’s been 52 hours.

Today, Shaun from the call center told me they can’t call me, they’re not allowed to make phone calls at the CALL CENTER> “I’ll send another message.” They can’t update the web site to say i’m now in Denver. they can’t call Rome or London to actually speak with a human. all they do is send pointless Telexes @#$!

How can any company be this incompetent?

We need to get the word out because this is RIDICULOUS.

The worldtracer is useless, it has not been updated once since my bag was lost on June 28th.

It boggles my mind how, in this day and age of heightened security and advanced electronics, ANY airline can lose accountability of ANY bag. How can they NOT know where a bag is?

And if a bag has a tag with a name and address on it, how can they NOT know where to send it?

This is without a doubt the most incompetent airline I have ever flown on.

WHERE IS MY SUITCASE BRITISH AIRWAYS?

I already know I will never see it again. This airline needs to be sued, how can they get away with this degree of incompetence? As far as I’m concerned British Airway STOLE MY LUGGAGE!

I arrived June 28 in Heathrow from Montego Bay,stood 4hours in the security line up,missed my flight to Amsterdam,lost 2 suitcases and 1 golfbag.made6 trips to the airport in Amsterdam no help yust ignorance.Spend 3 weeks Holland,no luggage,on July 18 recieved one bag full of water end mold.left July 19 still missing 1 bag and 1 suitcase,I am now in Jamaica my 6 week holiday is almost over no golfbag no suitcase.BA people in kingston are verry help full wih any info.For the BA company I wil say only one thing,Shitt will run downhill. Ruud B.

Update:Aug 1 after a phone call from BA.in Kingston Jamaica telling me that they have located 2 pieces of luggage,after being without a suitcase for 5 weeks my wife was verry happy, only 1 arrived at our hotel,we opened the suitcase and the smell and the view of all here clothes being distroyd by water was terrible. BA.I will never fly with you again.P.S my golf clubs are still missing.Ruud B.

What in the world are they doing with all the misplaced luggage, dunking it in the ocean or leaving it out in the rain???

Is it unreasonable to expect that they should store the luggage in a proper facility?

I flew from Heathrow to Paris on June 30th with my wife and two daughters. We checked three bags, but only one arrived on the carousel in Paris…
It took us 2 hours to file the claim at the baggage service desk. The next day the website was not updated and the phone nuber had a recording that they could not answer within a satisfactory time, suggesting we call again an hour later… After a week, impossible to contact anybody to tell them the address we left for delivery needs to be changed, since we are travelling… We had to go to the airport to talk to someone. There, an apologetic manager gave us a prepaid card with 370 Euros per passenger… and could not tell us anything about our luggage status, except that many BA employees are on a leave of absence because it is too tough to deal with that situation… After spending 2 weeks of vacation in France without our clothes, we returned to the US. We received one suitcase from Fedex at home on 7/22, the other one is still missing as of 8/2… It was my first trip on BA, and probably the last one… I intend to seek compensation for all the aggravation we went through, either individually or as part of a group if there is one…

Update: our luggage arrived today, 13 days after we checked it in to fly from Rome to LHR. My luggage was intact except for a plastic bag which contained Advil and my shampoo. All of it had been opened and the caps not put back to it is the most ugly awful mess but it stayed in the plastic bag, thank goodness. My husband was not so lucky. The outer pockets of his foldover suit carrier were wide open and everything in them missing. So now we’re on to phase II of this nightmare - filing a claim. But after reading so many stories where people’s luggage is lost for 3-4 weeks or longer, then returned moldy, I know we’re lucky in an odd sort of way. Good luck to all of you - there is hope!

By the way I wrote our saga to the travel section of the LA Times and they are working on a story. I suggest you write to your local press and invite them simply to google “lost luggage British Airways”. There are thousands of us all with a very similar experience, which tells you something.

British Airways lost my luggage as well on Dec 28, 2006, and to this day I have not received a response to my claim or a check.

Their customer service is non-existent, if not rude when I did reach someone over the phone. The lady was condescending as well saying “Yea, there’s a big white box on top of our website that says ‘Baggage Claim’ and you click on that link to reach the page to fill out info, etc - as if it was an adult speaking to a child.

I’ve been sending them an email every few days for the past 2 weeks and don’t even receive an automated response. (link: http://www.britishairways.com/travel/webforms/public/en_gb?eId=120001&wfpId=custrelreplies&case=5203831). When I emailed their general Customer Service, they simply stated they would forward my inquiry to the Baggage Dept, and to not send further correspondence.

Oh yea, to add insult to injury, when I tried to fax my claim in, all of their numbers were disconnected, so I had to wait a month before submitting it. I told that same condescending lady it was disconnected and she basically yelled at me saying she used it that day and it works.

This is the worst service I’ve ever encountered, and I plan on starting a blog/website spreading the word to never do business with them. Power in numbers!! And I would love to file a Class Action Lawsuit as well, so that we can all at least get some sort of retribution.

I lost about $2000 worth of belongings in my suitcase, during the holidays at that.

* Update *

Well what do you know, after sending out 6 emails to British Airways in the past 2 weeks, I received a letter last night that they will pay me $1475 for my loss. I believe that’s the standard liability that they pay (supposed to be around $1500, but our U.S. dollar is weak).

Good luck to the rest of you, I’ll take any retribution versus nothing at all.

It might be worth a shot to gather as many people as possible to make some type of reform.

I am so frustrated !! No clothes for two weeks. When we did get them they were soaking wet !! On our trip home BA missed our connecting flight. We did get a flight in to Boston. Guess what ? Not one bag on the flight !! And to top it off they never called my car as they promised and I had no ride home. I had to take a cab !! I did demand they pay the $125.00 cab fare. This is crazy. How can we be compensated. This ruined our trip and I’m still waiting for bags on the rerturn flight.

Traveled to & from Germany June 17 & July 1st thru Heathrow with 4 adults. Flight, food, & attendants were great, but son’s backpack with gear for a 5-week stay in Europe lost. Delivered to our host’s home after 5 days- lucky we were still there. A BA rep in Frankfurt told us that all lines to supervisors had been disconnected due to the number of complaints. Heathrow itself was a disaster - TWO security checkpoints after getting off a secured plane. The “one bag” policy is a fiasco - saw one woman with a handbag and a very large piece of artwork, obviously neither was checkable. Another man with 3 pieces was turned back, but we later saw him wandering around in the passenger area still with all 3 pieces - makes one wonder about “security.” Stood in line for over 2 hrs due to cancelled flight from London to Frankfurt, and others had cancelled flights to Madrid, Barcelona, Greece, Munich, etc.! Finally an employee passed out free bottled water. I do compliment the roving customer service reps - the ladies kept their cool in spite of abuse and the certain knowledge that they could not provide customer service anyway. No more BA for me.

Omigod! I am traveling BA from L.A. to Heathrow and connecting to CDG (Paris) for a 2-week holiday at Christmas-thru-New-Year time. These horror tales have me so nervous, enough to cancel our tickets, pay the $200/per person penalty, and re-book. The $400 total for my husband and I seems cheap compared to baggage-nerver-found consequences. Please advise!
Rica Burton

Rica, its a crap shoot. British Airways and BAA say things will get better but Christmas will be another really busy time so really it may be worth changing if you can afford it.

Same horror story as anyone else… Traveled through Heathrow in early July and still no word or trace of my bag. Lost a kilt worth several hundreds of dollars, and bicycle kit worth hundreds more.

My advice: ship your stuff to where you are going. Hand-carry ANYthing of value in the one small bag they’ll allow. Check anything that you don’t care about ever seeing again.

BA are criminally incompetent.

(update): It has been 6 weeks after British Airway lost my baggage, it is totally unbelievable, I wouldn’t complaint if they delayed my luggage for a few days, but 6 weeks is more than enough, what are they doing with passenger’s belonging??? This is a basic system an airline supposed to have, where is British Airway supervisors? They lost so many luggages, are we on a PIRATE SHIP? British Airway, Hello….!!! Where are our luggages? Can you hear us? When are you returning our luggages?

Hello

How can I joing the class law suit that is mentioned in this topic?

What is a good travel insurance that would cover lost baggage?
I must get this because I travel alot!

Bobby,
What email address did you use for BA?
————————–
Bobby | August 9th, 2007 at 2:08 pm

* Update *

Well what do you know, after sending out 6 emails to British Airways in the past 2 weeks, I received a letter last night that they will pay me $1475 for my loss. I believe that’s the standard liability that they pay (supposed to be around $1500, but our U.S. dollar is weak).

Good luck to the rest of you, I’ll take any retribution versus nothing at all.

It might be worth a shot to gather as many people as possible to make some type of reform.

Bobby - what email address did you use for BA? Many of us have had NO response from them regardless of contact method, and you apparently have found one that works.

Thanks for sharing your information. It gives us some hope!

Yes, what is the email address you used. It has been 7 weeks now, all of us have had NO response at all, website is totally useless, phones doesn’t work, fax to Wilie Walsh not responded, British Airway is totally hopeless. They stole our luggage, and not retrieving anything. DO NOT fly with British Airway ANYMORE.
British Airway, pls return my luggage even if it is wet and molded like other people experienced, but I need it, there are souvenirs I got from my grandmother that can’t be replaced !!!

Hey my husband just informed me via e-mail that his baggage was lost by BA in London en route to Africa. He is in Africa with no luggage. In his e-mail he asked me to try and track it down for him but it asks me for a reference number. There is no way for me to contact my husband except by e-mail but it will be days before he can get to a place where he can check his e-mail again. Does anyone out there know how I can find out which reference number they gave him or how BA gows about issuing the numbers for example the US airport abbreviaitons where he noarded BA, the flight number, the date–anything? Can anybody help me out there? PLEASE.

Mary, they should have given your husband a ref. no. when he reported his baggage missing upon arrival in Africa - I don’t think there’s any way you can find it out other than asking him. I really sympathise.

I have the same story as everyone else - my bag was stolen by British Airways en route from Heathrow to Oslo on 6 Aug. The phoneline was a joke - just cut me off. I made an online compensation claim for about £750 and have been sent a cheque (which I guess is pretty amazing actually) but only for £449. This doesn’t even begin to cover the cost of what they took, and I don’t understand how they can be allowed to try to fob me off like this. My bag had clothes etc. but more importantly a lot of the academic papers, books and my notes (argh) that I need to complete my masters degree. If they make everything wet and mouldy, though, I don’t know if I want it back. Actually, I still would. But I can’t see it happening.

PLEASE, if anyone is serious about this class action lawsuit, could we not DO IT?

Jo, I really sympathise about you lost your academic papers for your degree, my daughter is heading her ph.d so I know how important it is. You are a little better than me, British Airway stole my luggage on July 3 (a month ahead of you) and I have had no check from them yet. Yes Joe, I am as you do, serious about putting a lawsuit against British Airway, is there an organization or a lawyer group interested in taking our case?

Travelling together with my husband and two little boys from AUstralia to Copenhagen on 15. june 2007 we lost all of our 4 pieces of luggage, retrieved the three over the following 2 weeks. One suitcase still missing today aug. 27.
It has personal unique memories in it that has absolutely no value to other than our family but that I am so regretful to have lost and would go to far lengths to find.

The online tracking systems tells us that it has been received at airport on aug. 8th. SO I have tried to call all over the place in UK, Italy, Ausstralia to find out what is going on. BA says it means the case is closed but I have not seen my suitcase yet. The BA staff I have been lucky to get in contact with do not seem to be able to clarify anything.

Does anyone else know what RECEIVED AT AIRPORT means in BA language?

Hey Everyone,

I used the following link which is a webmail form:

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/webforms/public/en_gb?eId=120001&wfpId=custrelreplies

Have your Reference Number handy.

I also used:

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/askbainter/public/en_gb

Wish you best of luck, and remember to spread the word about this debacle. I will never fly British Airways again.

Cheers

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!!!!

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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.