AIRLINE BOSSES BATTLE TO CLEAR BAGGAGE CHAOS AT HEATHROW

Mountains of baggage cover the floors of Heathrow airport as airline bosses battle to clear the backlog after torrential rain and thunder in Europe caused chaos for passengers on the weekend.

The storms led to air traffic control restrictions across Europe last week impacting up to 10,000 holiday-makers, as British Airways was forced to cancel at least 60 flights, including planes headed for Toulouse and Milan.

Other airports were affected by the awful weather, including London City Airport where British Airways grounded flights to Palma, Glasgow and Berlin, and Gatwick where services to Agadir and Crete were cancelled.

The pictures from Heathrow's Terminal 5 show mountains of backlogged suitcases at baggage claim and check-in.

In a social media post directed at British Airways on Sunday, a concerned passenger said: 'We are yet to find our missing luggage. We flew from Heathrow to Abuja yesterday.

'Arriving Abuja this morning we could not find one of our checked in luggage. The luggage was checked in by one of your officers yesterday at Heathrow terminal 5.'

On Saturday, another wrote: 'So we have travelled to Bangkok & Singapore & our luggage is still with at Terminal 5 at Heathrow. Exactly where it was on Thursday evening.

'Frustratingly we knew that it was just 20 metres from us when we tried to have it released from baggage at Terminal 5.'

A spokesperson for British Airways told MailOnline: 'Like all airlines, we experience disruption to our flights last week due to air traffic control restrictions as a result of adverse weather across the UK and Europe, which was outside of our control.

'Our teams have been working hard to sort, fly and courier the bags of customers impacted by the disruption to them as quickly as possible.'

2024-08-05T01:25:04Z dg43tfdfdgfd