A Swiss plane from Zurich to Bilbao arrived at its destination in Spain on Saturday without a single piece of luggage in the hold, much to the surprise of passengers, media reported on Sunday, with the Swiss airline blaming a lack of ground staff for the inconvenience.
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The passengers on the Swiss flight to the city in northern Spain waited in vain in front of the conveyor belt for their luggage to arrive for more than two hours on Saturday evening, reports the daily newspaper Blick.
Swiss spokesman Kavin Ampalam confirmed that the plane, operated on behalf of the airline Edelweiss, took off with 111 passengers but no luggage on board.
“There was a shortage of ground staff,” he told AFP, adding that the crew initially waited for the situation to normalize.
But after more than an hour, “the situation was still unchanged and for operational reasons we decided to take the flight to Bilbao without luggage.”
AFP
The reason, he explained, was the need to pick up other passengers in Bilbao and return the plane to Zurich before the airport closed for the night.
“We regret the inconvenience caused,” he said.
Blick quoted passengers as saying the pilot apologized for the delay in takeoff from Zurich and blamed it on “a lack of qualified personnel,” but did not mention the decision to return their luggage.
The passengers said there were no Swiss staff on the ground in Bilbao and they then waited more than two hours to collect their luggage before staff from Spanish airline Iberia told them the plane had landed with no luggage on board.
“Our vacation is ruined,” passenger Carsten Redlich told Blick.
The Swiss spokesman said he could not confirm that passengers had not been informed of the decision to leave their luggage in Zurich. “
We are still analyzing the situation to find out exactly what happened. “It shouldn’t be happening,” he said.