British Airway customers told to abandon bags at Heathrow to avoid huge delays

Thousands of pieces of luggage have been left at an airport, with passengers furious at one airline for causing the chaos.

British Airways passengers who flew into London’s Heathrow Airport were given the option to abandon their bags or wait hours due to staff shortages on Saturday and Sunday.

The chaos came after Storm Eunice tore across Britain, causing widespread damage and hundreds of flight cancellations from the country’s largest airport, the New Zealand Herald reports.

While the baggage delays didn’t seem to be caused by the storm, passengers complained British Airways and Heathrow were unwilling to explain why they occurred.

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Some customers claimed they had to wait several hours before their luggage arrived on the carousel on Saturday. By the evening, the system seemed to ground to a total halt and passengers were told to leave the airport and complete a lost luggage form.

One individual took to Twitter to complain about British Airways’ baggage handling, describing it as a “disgrace”.

“Hiding your customer service staff when being asked for updates and mountains of undelivered/unclaimed bags. Blaming the wind when the reality is you’re short-staffed. Embarrassing,” the tweet read.

@British_Airways your baggage handing at Heathrow airport T5 is a disgrace. Hiding your customer service staff when being asked for updates and mountains of undelivered/unclaimed bags. Blaming the wind when the reality is you’re short staffed. Embarrassing pic.twitter.com/TS29151Ek0

— Adam (@adzsimon) February 20, 2022

The customer endured a three-hour wait for his bags while others said they had waited upwards of four hours.

On the frequent flyer message board FlyerTalk, one user shared what they had been told after their flight to Geneva was delayed.

“Captain said a shortage of ground crew meant the bags from the inbound flight were slow to be offloaded and the bags for our flight even slower to be loaded,” they wrote.

Another user said little had changed on Sunday morning and passengers arriving on an overnight flight had to wait 40 minutes before buses could even take them to the terminal. From then, luggage took several hours to appear.

British Airways’ online lost luggage reporting form apparently crashed due to high demand.

However, British Airways claimed the staff shortage wasn’t the issue. In a statement, the airline said they faced “ongoing disruption as a result of storms in the UK and across Europe.”

The bags on the belt at Heathrow.

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience we know this may have caused. Please rest assured we’ll do everything we can to help and we have volunteers from across the airline arriving at Heathrow to offer their support.”

Instead of waiting, the airline recommended passengers go home and wait for luggage to be sent to them.

“If you are still at the airport, we would recommend heading home or to your destination and we will courier your baggage to you at the earliest opportunity,” the statement said.

This article originally appeared on the New Zealand Herald and has been republished with permission