Several thousand pieces of luggage have been blocked at London’s Heathrow Airport since last week due to a major technical glitch and staff shortage. Two young women whose suitcases are still locked up in London confide their concerns to BFMTV.com.
“When I saw the pictures, I said to myself, ‘We’ll never see our suitcases again.’ Julie Coulan, 31, was returning with her husband from a honeymoon in Mauritius on Friday when their two suitcases, each weighing 24kg, were lost at London’s Heathrow Airport, where she was stopping over before returning to Paris.
“Super vacation, honeymoon at the top and once in Paris we are told that we don’t have our suitcases: neither my husband’s nor mine,” the young woman tells BFMTV.com, “baffled by the situation,” who explains that “about fifteen other passengers” on board their flight were in the same situation. “The same applies to a flight that landed a few minutes before ours from Canada: 200 passengers and no suitcases”.
Chaos, staff shortages and canceled flights
When Julie and her husband try to find out where their suitcases are from the ground stewardesses, they explain to them that they are stuck in London, that “London, like Amsterdam, is very notorious at the moment for the confusion of sorting suitcases due to a lack of staff related to the Covid”.
Heathrow Airport (London’s largest) like other airports and airlines across the country is currently facing staff shortages as the busiest season of the year begins. Blame for Brexit lies with Easy Jet’s General Manager Johann Lundgren, who notes that the UK’s exit from the European Union has made it very difficult to renew staff.
The accumulation of these baggage handling problems even forced Heathrow Airport to ask companies to cancel 10% of their flights. An airport spokesman apologized for the inconvenience on Monday British TV channel Sky News. However, he suggested that “baggage claim is the responsibility of individual airlines rather than the airport”.
“It totally disgusts me”
“On Saturday, when we came back, my husband was looking for information on social media. There he saw the pictures of Terminal 2 and dated June 18. That’s exactly where we wanted to go, so we made the connection immediately,” develops the Parisians.
“Beyond myself, it totally disgusts me,” admits Julie Coulan. “My husband is quite optimistic (of finding our suitcases) but seeing the pictures I can’t. It’s not possible, there are thousands upon thousands of suitcases. I don’t see how our suitcase could attract attention,” she says angrily. “So we have no business there and we don’t have the funds to buy back everything that was in our suitcases. I did a lot of shopping before the holidays, I admit we have valuable items like just jewelry and (…) even sentimental things that would not be replaceable”.
“I called Air France three times today (Monday), twice on Sunday, this is my 10th complaint, I left messages on social networks… I’m freaking out. Some will tell me that you have to be patient, no, I don’t want to. At 2,000 euros for air travel, I really don’t hear that,” continues the traveler, who believes that consumers “pay the piper so that companies asking exorbitant prices that have only increased”.
“We were asked to leave our suitcases in the terminal”
Irina Garrett, a 31-year-old English woman, also had to leave two suitcases in the hall of Terminal 2 at London Airport on Friday as she left on a trip to Malta. “When I arrived, I saw thousands of suitcases on the terminal floor and long lines outside the parking lot,” she told BFMTV.com.
“I went to the Air Malta counters to check in my luggage, but nobody was there,” the young woman continues. “After 20 minutes, an employee started checking in and asked us to leave our bags with the others in the middle of the terminal. That’s where it started to bother me because we were being asked to break an important safety rule.”
Despite everything, Irina Garrett takes one last picture of her suitcases and runs away. “At the boarding gate we were told not to worry because our suitcases would be arriving in Malta the next day … but that was the last time I saw them,” she admits today, “anxious” for four days later.
“I think my bags are somewhere at Heathrow, I can’t go out too much as I don’t have any of my stuff so I stay in my room and work while waiting to hear from me. But we have received very little information for 72 hours. The phone lines are all busy and no one has an answer.”
Following the chaos scenes and flight cancellations that have plagued Britain’s airports of late, London hub Gatwick announced on Friday that it would significantly reduce the number of daily flights in July and August due to staff shortages. The UK aviation sector has come under fire in recent weeks, particularly from the government, which has accused companies of being ill-prepared for whatever the foreseeable resumption of services.
Jeanne Bulant Journalist BFMTV