Bags wait goes on after air traffic control chaos

A passenger who had to abandon her holiday due to an air traffic control technical issue says she has still not had her baggage returned a week later.

Helen Moore from Ottershaw, Surrey, abandoned her holiday to Corfu after a nine-hour wait at Heathrow Airport when her flight was caught up in widespread cancellations earlier in September.

She told BBC Radio Surrey that British Airways had not returned her luggage and she had received "really no good information at all" until Monday.

British Airways said last Wednesday it was "incredibly sorry" for the experience customers endured "because of an issue that has been entirely out of our control".

Heathrow's operations have returned to normal and the airport is directing luggage inquiries to airlines.

Hundreds of thousands of people are thought to have been affected across two days of travel chaos after the air traffic control system operated by Nats went down for four hours on 8 September.

Nats previously said it was investigating the glitch and apologised for the fault - the third major issue in as many years.

Moore said the situation in Terminal 5 had been "absolute chaos" and she found passengers "were just milling around with no luggage" after she disembarked the plane.

"There was some baggage on the carousel, a lot of bags, but they were all mixed up," she said.

"They weren't just off one particular flight, there were no signs up saying where the bags would be."

She added: "We took the decision very early on that it was better to be at home with no luggage than away on holiday with no luggage."

Moore's holiday has been refunded but she remains without her luggage, which contained her husband's hearing aids and spare glasses.

"He won't be doing that again, but that's on him," she said.

According to the UK Civil Aviation Authority, airlines are liable for lost or damaged baggage but there are "no rules which fix the amount of compensation you should receive".

The organisation advises passengers that it "might be better to claim on your travel insurance" as airlines "may not pay out the true cost" of delays or lost luggage.

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