News: Baggage chaos hits Heathrow
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Flights > News > # 1696 (21/02/2008)
There were chaotic scenes at London Heathrow earlier this week following the complete breakdown of terminal 4’s baggage handling system.
Economy class travellers arriving at the terminal, which mainly deals with long-haul flights, were told they could only take hand baggage with them - meaning they either had to leave most of their luggage behind or miss their flights.
Around 4,000 passengers were affected by the problem, almost all of them on British Airways flights, and hundreds decided to switch airlines or postpone their trips rather than leaving their luggage behind.
The terminal's automatic baggage sorting system, which uses computer-controlled conveyor belts to send luggage to the right aircraft, broke down because of a software failure at lunchtime on Tuesday.
It was the 10th baggage handling breakdown at the airport since last May, leading to accusations of incompetence directed at airport owner BAA, which operates the machinery.
While smaller airlines, such as Qantas and KLM, were able to get round the problem by sorting bags manually, the sheer volume of BA flights leaving the terminal meant BA could not get hold luggage onto its aircraft.
Major delays and breakdowns have become so commonplace at Heathrow in recent years that Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, accused the airport of "shaming" the capital.
A spokesman for BAA said: "The problem was caused because both the main computer system and the backup one which control the automatic baggage sorting machinery broke down as we were trying to update the software on Tuesday. We've never had both systems break down at the same time before.
"The system was down for about 20 hours before we got it up and running again and we can only apologise to passengers for the inconvenience caused."
A British Airways spokesman said: "The problem was out of our control but we don't underestimate how dramatically inconvenient this has been."
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