Thousands of passengers were left without their bags after three days of IT problems caused chaos at Heathrow Terminal 5.
Staff struggled to deal with the huge backlog by hand as British Airways faced complaints from passengers.
Problems started on Thursday when an IT fault knocked out the terminal’s complicated bag processing system.
The terminal’s 30 miles of conveyor belts which usually handled 12,000 bags a day ground to a halt, resulting in staff having to move the luggage to the aircraft by hand, the Sunday Times reported.
A BA spokesman told MailOnline: “On Thursday morning, the baggage system in Terminal 5 suffered an IT problem which affected how many bags could be accepted for each flight.
“We are very sorry for the difficulties this has caused and we have been working hard with the airport to make sure we reunite all of our customers with their luggage as quickly as possible.”
A Heathrow spokesman said: “Manual processing has led to some bags not making flights in time. We are very sorry for any passengers affected.”