Travel headaches persist at British Airways” (BA) new Heathrow Terminal 5 as the carrier cancelled 54 flights ” including three long-haul ” yesterday (31 March) and another 50 today.
The baggage system is still not working properly, but a BA spokeswoman told ABTN it is working hard to re-unite the stockpile of lost bags with their owners, with the help of 400 volunteers.
”We”re doing it as fast as we can ” we”ve got various centres for sorting, separated into areas including short-haul and domestic ” some bags have been delivered to Manchester, for example.
”It would be very difficult to put a cost on it at this stage.”
She said that ”if need be we”ll be able to draw on more volunteers.”
BA CEO Willie Walsh said in a statement on Sunday: ”A backlog of undelivered bags has built up. This backlog is not affecting the day-to-day operation of the baggage system, and we are making every effort to reunite delayed bags with their owners. We have more than 400 volunteers from across the airline supporting this effort.
”This work takes time as delayed bags must undergo enhanced levels of security screening. Much of this process has to be done manually because we have been unable to use the T5 baggage system to process these bags automatically.
He apologised again for those whose flights were cancelled or bags lost, adding that the baggage system was ”generally working better” but that ”from time to time problems have developed that were not encountered during the extensive trials. These issues are being addressed as they arise by a team of engineers and IT specialists from BAA and BA.