London-Heathrow baggage

[bigwally]

Your bags might be in NY now:

 

"British Airways has been forced to fly jumbo jets full of lost baggage to the US in an attempt to reunite passengers with their belongings. The airline has confirmed that up to ten baggage flights have left London for New York in the past two months.

 

The Association of European Airlines said last week that BA was the worst large carrier in Europe for losing bags, with one in 36 passengers affected. The special flights were used by BA to clear a backlog of 22,000 items of luggage that were not transported on flights with their owners.

 

The airline has also trucked baggage to Milan for sorting and is using vans to deliver lost baggage to passengers who live in other parts of Europe. When contacted by The Times, BA initially denied that it was operating baggage-only flights to New York. But Willie Walsh, the chief executive, confirmed their use on Friday. He blamed a faulty conveyor belt that takes bags from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4 at Heathrow for creating the backlog, which has been building up since June. A lack of baggage handlers has also contributed to the problem. The airline has used volunteer office staff and workers from Gatwick.

 

“When a bag misses its connection we have to do a second security screening by hand and that takes time and is incredibly labour-intensive,” Mr Walsh said. “It is quicker moving bags around Europe by road.”

 

The BA bag flights are thought to have left their loads in New York, but it is unclear how the bags are being forwarded to passengers from there."

[Globaliser]

The Association of European Airlines said last week that BA was the worst large carrier in Europe for losing bags, with one in 36 passengers affected.

I've posted about this in another thread, but this media line is inaccurate.

 

BA was the worst of the 23 AEA carriers that deigned to report their delayed baggage figures to the AEA.

 

However, there were seven other AEA carriers that concealed their performance by the simple expedient of not telling the AEA. Notably, these included bmi and Virgin Atlantic, the other two major airlines whose major hub is Heathrow, and who are probably suffering from the same systemic problems as BA. But at least BA played the game by providing the figures.

 

Interestingly, Virgin also failed to provide punctuality figures to the AEA - this is an area in which Virgin is known to perform very badly. But of course, as it's Virgin, nobody takes them to task about this.

[Keith1010]

I spoke with someone who just came back from LHR and in their opinion the luggage situation is still a big problem.

 

Keith

[ToBe]

We are still awaiting two of our bags from Heathrow. We had a nonstop flight to IAD. There were @ 15+ people who are also missing luggage. BA knew that the luggage was lost when we arrived at IAD. The conveyor belt was having problems and I guess our luggage suffered. Nothing has shown up on the web site yet. Thankfully this is the end of the trip. We do not need our dress clothes but would like our souveniers.

 

Temma

Our bags arrived Monday afternoon. All is well and the laundry done and gifts distributed.

 

Temma

[OhJinkies]

I'll be flying to London for the first time, for my cruise next fall, and at this time I plan to make my own arrangements. Is Heathrow the only international airport? I see people saying to try to avoid it, but do I have a choice if I'm flying from the U.S.?

 

Also, this will not be a round trip as our cruise ends in Italy. Am I better off making my own air arrangements on line or working with a travel agent?

 

Thanks!

[Host CJSKIDS]

Happy to report that we flew in and out of LHR last week and our baggage made it there and back all in one piece. It appeared as everyone's bags on our flights made it there.

I think the problem that they're having has to do more with connecting flights that go through LHR that direct flights into LHR.

[Globaliser]

I'll be flying to London for the first time, for my cruise next fall, and at this time I plan to make my own arrangements. Is Heathrow the only international airport? I see people saying to try to avoid it, but do I have a choice if I'm flying from the U.S.?

 

Also, this will not be a round trip as our cruise ends in Italy. Am I better off making my own air arrangements on line or working with a travel agent?

 

Thanks!

The main commercial airports serving London are:-

• Heathrow
• Gatwick
• Stansted
• London City
• Luton

There are also other UK airports, both near and far, which can be use as a way of getting to London, but these are the main "London airports".

 

The main advantage of Heathrow is the very wide variety of choice of airlines and flight times, which makes it easy to tailor your flight arrangements to suit your needs.

 

At the moment, some destinations in the US cannot be served from Heathrow because of the terms of the bilateral air services agreement between the two countries. From March 2008, a new agreement comes into force, which will remove this restriction. Some current Gatwick services are therefore moving to Heathrow; I expect that more will follow.

[CruiserGreg]

bigwally,

 

Where did you find those luggage tag itinerary holders? Also, if you don't mind, please let us know upon your return how your trip on BA was. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and your luggage arrives with you. Enjoy your cruise!!

[Elaine0138]

We have had two diffrent people in our house fly through Heathrow last weekend one connected onto BA and luggage arrived at final destination, the other was on BMI no luggage until next day. The girl at the BMI desk said they have on average 20 pieces of luggage per flight delayed from Heathrow to Edinburgh. There certainly was no queque of people outside the BA office or any luggage waiting to be picked up by the courier.