British Airways passengers suffer baggage chaos at Heathrow

British Airways is unable to put a timeframe on when passengers will be reunited with bags after a ‘technical fault’ caused chaos at Heathrow.

Passengers flying out from London arrived at destinations to discover their luggage was not on the plane.

Others waited hours at the carousel in Terminal Five before realising their bags were not coming.

BA declined to say how many flights, passengers or bags weee affected.

A spokesperson said passengers were asked to fill out a form, leaving a forwarding address so bags could be delivered by courier.

Extra staff have been called in to speed up efforts to deal with the backlog.

A British Airways spokesman said: “We’ve apologised to those customers who were unable to travel with their luggage due to a temporary technical fault that was outside of our control.

“This issue has been resolved and we’ve brought in additional colleagues to support our teams in getting bags back to our customers as quickly as possible.”

A Heathrow spokesperson said: “British Airways experienced a technical issue with their allocation system. This has now been resolved.

“Our teams are on site supporting BA with their recovery.

“We advise passengers to check with BA before travelling to the airport as BA passengers in Terminal 5 may still be impacted. No other airline is impacted.”

Writing on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, one passenger who arrived at Heathrow, described the situation as a “shambles”.

He added: “No info told just to go home. But need the bag for a wedding tomorrow and you’re telling me 48 hours for my bag!!!”

Another wrote: “Flew to Newcastle from Heathrow last night with @British_Airways.

“No updates or info provided by BA – flight arrived 3 hours late & without baggage.

“One staff member stood in baggage reclaim with a laminated piece of paper with a QR code to a portal that doesn’t work. Disgraceful.”

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