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Heathrow IT glitch leaves thousands stranded without their luggage

Another baggage handling issue has left the airline struggling to reunite bags with their owners

Ben Tufft
Monday 27 October 2014 12:56 EDT
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British Airways planes
British Airways planes (Getty)

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British Airways is facing another backlash from disgruntled customers, after the baggage system it uses at Heathrow crashed on Saturday night, which is continuing to cause problems for travellers.

Fliers, who were left in locations across the globe without clothes or toiletries, quickly took to Twitter to express their anger.

A passenger, who was travelling with the airline to Thailand this morning, received no help from the company when her bags did not arrive in Bangkok. After calling the helpline twice, she was asked to speak to Bangkok Airways.

She was later told that there were 5,000 bags waiting to be reunited with their owners.

The passenger told the Independent: "It seems quite incredible that given our luggage is still in Britain, that British Airways could not help.

"After a 20 hour journey, this is the last thing you want to happen at the start of your holiday. Perhaps BA should change their strap line - to fly but not to serve."

Although the baggage handling system is now functioning correctly, the huge backlog that must be cleared means that customers are still experiencing problems.

A British Airways spokesman could not confirm the number of missing bags, but said: "There were some issues with Heathrow Airport’s baggage IT systems throughout the evening of Saturday 25 October. The systems started to return to normal yesterday morning and flights operated as scheduled."

He added: "Our focus is on ensuring that any delayed bags are reunited with customers as soon as possible. We are sorry for any disruption to customers’ travel plans."

The flag carrier has been beset by problems with its baggage handling system over the past few years.

Most embarrassingly, when the airline moved into its new home at Terminal 5 in 2008 the airline misplaced some 42,000 bags over 10 days.

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