Something newsy: Heathrow baggage chaos as BA computer system fails

This is not typically the platform I’d use to write a quick breaking news story, but I haven’t seen any coverage elsewhere, so what the heck.

British Airways suffered a failure of its baggage handling system at London Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 Friday morning, which has led to cascading delays in returning checked bags to passengers.

It was an inauspicious start for travelers getting an early start on their summer vacations, with passengers at Heathrow waiting more than five hours in some cases for their bags.

As of 8 p.m. local time, the airline was making announcements at baggage claim suggesting that passengers should consider leaving the airport and filing lost baggage claims on BA’s website. BA’s lost and delayed luggage page states that the airline returns “most missing bags to their owners within 72 hours.” Airport representatives, meanwhile, were offering water bottles to delayed passengers. One customer service agent said it would likely be a minimum of three days to get bags delivered, according to one passenger.

Other announcements for specific flights noted that the airline was “unable to get any more bags off” of aircraft, noting there would be no further bags delivered to baggage claim from those flights.

[Update, Saturday: Meanwhile, according to commenters here and on X/Twitter, flights leaving Heathrow Terminal 5 yesterday flew without any baggage loaded, without warning passengers that they’d be leaving without their bags. If you had an issue with a flight yesterday, leave a comment below.[

A spokesperson for British Airways said Friday evening that the airline was working closely with Heathrow to address the baggage issue at Terminal 5.

“Whilst this was clearly an issue outside of our control, our teams are working hard to get customers’ bags to them as quickly as possible,” the statement said.

The spokesperson noted that flights were operating as normal, although British Airways recorded 212 delayed flights on Saturday, or 29% of its flights, according to FlightAware, although it was not clear whether any of those delays were related.

(Full disclosure: I’m writing this from baggage claim at Heathrow, so there’s obviously some personal investment/conflict of interest in this).

At 8 p.m., baggage claim was bustling with travelers debating whether to head to their hotels to try and get a late dinner, or wait for their luggage.

For parents, the baggage delays included checked strollers. It was unclear whether specialized wheelchairs and other mobility devices were also delayed.

So what’s the takeaway here?

Travel can be great, and it can also be unmitigated chaos. If you’re checking a bag, make sure you keep essential medications with you in the cabin, and ideally try and carry a spare outfit or two.

If you’re traveling with kids, checking bags is basically an inevitability. Make sure you have at least a day or two worth of supplies with you in a carry-on. Thankfully, we did.

For families with young kids, be very careful with your stroller. We gate-checked ours, but our plane parked at a remote gate, and the gate-checked luggage was accidentally loaded onto a baggage cart, according to a flight attendant. BA and Heathrow do not have loaner strollers available at the airport, according to one customer service rep, so we would have been better off carrying our ultra-compact stroller on the plane with us — even though we already had enough stuff to manage with the kids.

There are some customer protections under UK261 (the U.K.’s post-Brexit version of EU261), but it’s not clear whether delayed baggage is covered. An email sent to affected customers said that they could “claim reasonable expenses” for purchased essential items.

Summer travel is only just getting started, but disruptions can happen at any time for any reason. You can always hope for the best, but it’s best to prepare for the worst.