 Normally when you hear about flight problems you think about long delays, emergency landings, cancelled flights and strikes. But last week the topic of conversation was the problems at London Heathrow Airport that generated a media frenzy as thousands of British Airways’ passengers (including celebrities) lost their luggage. When passengers arrive at the airport and see DELAYED instead of ‘go to gate’ they think it is the end of the world. No one really anticipates that an airline could in fact lose or misplace your baggage. Having no clothes for the duration of your holiday is far worse than a flight delay that’s for sure. Last month many passengers were devastated to find that they were not able to reclaim their luggage as a computer glitch meant that the bags leaving Heathrow Terminal 5 were not loaded onto flights. The problem with the baggage system occurred between Thursdays 26th and Sunday 29th June. As the majority of flights were international with complex security issues and customs regulations it meant that it was taking several days to return bags to passengers. These passengers were furious as British Airways were not informing them of the problem and were leaving people to attempt to continue as normal without their luggage. Due to the computer failure, bags had to be sorted manually, which created a huge backlog. This complete catastrophe has been described as one of the worst flight problems Europe has had to deal with. Heathrow is the 3rd busiest airport in the world, serving 191,200 passengers each day,which indicates the sheer amount of people that were affected by this technical glitch. However, it is not the first time that a baggage system fault has occurred in London Heathrow. During the opening of Terminal 5 back in 2008, hundreds of flights were cancelled and thousands of bags were lost. Many celebrities have been victims of lost luggage, for example the Bollywood actress DeepikaPadukone reported to have lost her luggage four times whilst flying with British Airways. Coleen Rooney is another celebrity that had a bad experience flying with British Airways when she was forced to wait 2 days to receive her cases. When Coleen eventually received her belongings many of her personal items were missing accounting to thousands of pounds. Kim Kardashian is another celebrity who had several handbags and sunglasses taken whilst travelling with British Airways. She quotes that “there’s no sense of security and no trust”. Airlines are obliged to cover the costs of essential items such as underwear and toiletries for which compensation should be issued in cash. In addition to this, passengers should be entitled to a fixed daily budget (normally to a value of £100-200 per passenger). For passengers whose bags never turn up, they could be entitled to claim up to £1100 according to the Montreal Convention which outlines passenger rights for victims of air travel issues. To protect yourself in such situations it is always recommended to carry items of necessity in your hand luggage in the unfortunate event of luggage going missing. Socially On!
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