British Airways and officials of the Transport and General Workers’ Union have denied that unofficial industrial action by baggage handlers lay at the root of the Christmas luggage crisis at Heathrow.
About 4,500 bags continued to sit at Heathrow Terminal 4 awaiting distribution to BA passengers late on Thursday, down from 7,500 the day before. Astonishingly, some of the bags have been delayed since before Christmas.
BA blamed a combination of difficulties – a system failure leading to a baggage belt breakdown on December 17 was compounded by extensive flight cancellations and delays caused by three days of fog on December 20-22, and a further baggage system breakdown on December 29. The delays affected flights at both Terminals 1 and 4.
But a source blamed unofficial action by BA baggage handlers, resisting the introduction of new work practices.
BA acknowledged it has begun to change the way its baggage handlers work as it prepares to combine operations at the two terminals for the move to Terminal 5 in 2008.
But a BA spokesman said: “We have no record and have not been told of any unofficial go slow. We think our industrial relations are OK.”
A T&G spokeswoman added: “The problems were entirely due to the legacy of the fog problem before Christmas compounded by a system breakdown. There is no suggestion of industrial action.”
BA said it aimed to clear the backlog by the end of this week. However, a source suggested it could be a week before every passenger is reunited with their bags.
Heathrow handles about 250,000 items of luggage per day. BA said it handled almost one million passengers and baggage over the Christmas holiday. About 20,000 suffered some kind of luggage problem.