British Airways demands £10m from Heathrow over baggage fiasco

British Airways chief executive, Sean Doyle, is reported to have contacted Heathrow airport CEO, Thomas Woldbye, after the luggage systems at Terminal 5 broke down on Friday.

Mr Doyle asked the Heathrow boss for compensation and for contingency plans to be drawn up following the incident.

The system failures saw arriving passengers going home without their bags and departing passengers later finding out their bags had not been loaded onto the plane.

This is the fifth time the baggage system has had issues since the start of the year, and this most recent incident is believed to have cost the airline £10million.

Read more: British Airways’ parent company posts record profits

Read more: Ryanair sees fares and costs under pressure due to Iran war

During the February half-term holiday, 7,000 bags were affected in a similar technical failure, and another 4,000 at Easter.

People have shared pictures of luggage abandoned across the terminal on Friday on social media.

While Heathrow Airport is responsible for outbound luggage, individual airlines hold responsibility for inbound bags. This is because inbound luggage does not enter an airport's system and is taken from a flight by an airline's ground handler and brought to baggage carousels for passengers to collect.

BA has apologised to passengers but insisted the issues with the system were out of its control and has deployed extra staff to help solve the issues.

A British Airways source told The Times that the airline "can't keep absorbing the consequences of repeated Heathrow system failures".

"As decisions are made about the airport's future, it's essential that reliability and resilience come first," they added.

Commenting on the recent incident, a Heathrow spokesperson said in a statement: "We are really sorry for the inconvenience and frustration caused by the baggage incident last Friday. 

"The system’s reliability is fully restored, and we have been working closely with BA to reunite bags with their owners. Our baggage system operates with 99 per cent reliability despite Heathrow operating at full capacity.

"We will continue working with airlines and their ground handlers to minimise future incidents and drive opportunities to make baggage performance even more reliable. 

"We hope the CAA will see the value these improvements will deliver for our customers and support future investment."

After the issues on Friday, passengers blasted the airline on social media.

One woman's honeymoon was ruined after she found out her bags were lost after landing in Corfu.

She said in a post on social media: "On our honeymoon in Corfu and British Airways have lost our bags. Absolutely devastated, never had this issue in 15 years and it happens on our honeymoon. Poor communication hours of waiting around and no bags arrived."

Another person added: "What a shambles. No communication, no luggage and now your website is down to report the non-retrievable luggage."

A third chimed in: "British Airways really disappointing with arriving back to T5 and total chaos at baggage arrivals. Families waiting hours and told to go home as baggage abandoned all over airport."