Thousands of passengers are facing chaos at Heathrow Airport once again with long queues at check in and people forced to travel on without their baggage. “Operational constraints” meant bags weren’t delivered and many flights were stuck on the tarmac waiting to leave yesterday (Saturday March 19).
British Airways (BA) told passengers waiting to collect their luggage on Saturday evening that no more bags will be delivered for the rest of the day. Hundreds of passengers waited for hours before being told to go home without their luggage.
At least 25 flights were affected, while many other flights were delayed reportedly due to a shortage of ground crew, the Independent reports.
READ MORE: Heathrow Airport chaos as British Airways travellers wait 4 hours for bags with ‘no food or water’ among piles of unclaimed luggage
Lynn Hill tweeted: “No baggage came out at all last night, 2000 people in arrivals and then an announcement saying “go home”. No one’s answering phones and there’s no Comms. Truly bad. @HeathrowAirport”
Ju wrote: “How about you speak to someone from British Airways & tell them to resolve the 1000’s of bags from 25 flights that were not unloaded from airplanes last night!No way of getting through to them & no update on the bags. Shocking service! Remove @British_Airways from Heathrow!!!”
Later they added: “We have been trying to contact them since 1am online and from 8am on the phones -no answer- an automated message says they are busy and cuts off the call! The bags have necessary medication & sentimental value items from dads funeral! The stress this has created is unbelievable”
This morning, Julie Welham tweeted: “Sort out Heathrow terminal 5 @British_Airways – what the hell is going on – queues like i have never seen – no way to work out which q is which. 45 minutes so far waiting to check in and not even close to the front of the queue – and loads of check in desks not even open.”
The airline said in a statement: “We’ve apologised to customers whose bags have been delayed due to operational constraints. We know how frustrating this is and our teams are working incredibly hard to return luggage as soon as possible.”
This weekend’s issues aren’t the first time in recent months that BA passengers have faced chaos. Last month, all short-haul flights were cancelled due to a major IT outage and many others were delayed.
The airline emailed customers on March 4 to apologise. They wrote: “At British Airways we’ve had an incredibly difficult couple of weeks,” Tom Stevens, director of brand and customer experience wrote. Change has started at British Airways, but sadly the big fixes don’t happen overnight.
“As you were caught up in the recent disruption and you’ve struggled to speak to us, we know it might not feel as though things are happening, but you’ll have to trust us when we tell you they are.”
MyLondon has contacted Heathrow for a comment.
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