Wed, Jan 03, 2007
Officials Tackle Chaos Left Behind After Christmas' Foggy
Weather
British Airways says
fog that delayed flights for days around Christmas didn't just
affect holiday travelers -- some were separated from their luggage
leaving a "mountain" of unclaimed bags at London's Heathrow.
Officials with the airline say at least half of the unclaimed
baggage at the airport belongs to its customers, and it plans to
start tackling the problem today.
A BA spokesman told the UK's Press Association, "The problem
began before Christmas when there was a fault with a baggage belt
at Heathrow Terminal 4. That caused the initial backlog, and about
8,000 bags were not delivered. Then the fog at Heathrow caused
further problems, and there was another Terminal 4 baggage belt
problem on December 29."
The ensuing chaos left around 10,000 stranded bags at the
airport. BA has chartered freighter aircraft and drafted volunteers
to help reunite bags with their owners.
Despite the current mess, BA says it could have been worse. "To
put the whole thing into context, we dealt with about 75,000 bags a
day at Heathrow over the festive period and handled about one
million passengers."
The airline says it hasn't been able to deal with the problem
until after the holiday travel season, adding backlogs like this
take time to clear because added security measures complicates
handling delayed baggage.
The airlines has apologized to its affected customers and says
it plans to return all bags over the next 48 hours.
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