Hundreds of travellers have spent their Christmas holidays without clothes, medication and presents after a British Airways baggage blunder.
The Manchester Evening News has been contacted by passengers who flew into Manchester Airport from London Heathrow over the festive period, only to find their possessions had been left behind.
Instead, they found piles of baggage from earlier flights, thought to have arrived too late to be claimed by their owners.
READ MORE: Delays continue at Manchester Airport as staff work under ‘severe pressure’ in run up to Christmas
Following reports of lost baggage throughout the festive period, the Manchester Evening News asked British Airways exactly how many flights failed to fly with their customers' luggage.
Despite apologising to customers, and blaming 'operational constraints', BA have failed to share this information.
A week since their flight, Craig Cuthbert, 38, his wife Lucy, 35, and their toddler Paxton, two, have still not been reunited with their suitcases.
They were among travellers to fly into Manchester on December 21, and have had to buy new clothes, medications and presents following the blunder.
Craig, an operations manager from Philadelphia told the Manchester Evening News : “We had been so much looking forward to Christmas.
“We were coming back to visit family for the first time in two years after Covid. It’s just such a disappointment that this happened.
“It’s had a terrible impact. We were really looking forward to the trip and it’s just been disappointing, as has the lack of communication. Financially and emotionally it’s been really difficult.”
The family had flown from America to Manchester via Heathrow, where their plane was delayed and Craig claims they were stuck waiting for four hours longer than scheduled, more than two of which were on the runway.
Craig said: “The plane wasn’t moving. The first officer came on the Tannoy to say he was sorry but they were waiting for the bags to be loaded.
"Half-an-hour later he came on again to say they were still waiting and he’d give us another update in 15 minutes.”
But that update never came, said Craig, and the plane took off 45 minutes later.
When the family and their fellow passengers arrived in Manchester, it was to find an empty carousel at Arrivals.
“About 45 minutes later somebody came out and told us our bags were never loaded on to the plane, gave us a form to fill out and told us to go home," said Craig.
“We’ve had to buy new clothes, essentials, we lost all our Christmas presents and British Airways say they can’t locate our bags.”
Craig was also perturbed by a huge pile of bags left in the terminal - which had arrived late from an earlier flight.
“My biggest concern was that the captain blatantly knew there were no bags and elected to not tell anybody and then there were no staff at Manchester to deal with the situation.”
Jamie Skorczewski flew into Manchester from San Diego via Heathrow after a two-hour delay and, like Craig, he was met with an empty carousel.
He said he and 200 fellow passengers, including babies and the elderly, were left waiting for nearly two hours at Manchester before a member of BA staff came to hand out forms for them to report their baggage.
He added: “What made us all angry is that they repeatedly lied to us on the aircraft when we questioned what was happening, they claimed to have no knowledge of why the plane was delayed and just kept making up excuses that didn’t make any sense to us.
“I think many people would not have taken the flight if they knew there was no way they’d see their luggage again for weeks.”
In a tale similar to Craig's, Jamie found an ‘eerie’ scene on arrival, with no staff available to help.
“There was no one at any desks and piles and piles of baggage stacked up in all corners of the carousel areas.
“Some of this luggage had dates on them from three or four days ago, just sitting there and non one taking care to get them to their owners.”
He said: “They took off with literally one minute to spare before they would have to pay us compensation for a two-hour delay and left our luggage behind in LHR to hit this financial target.”
Jamie said the delay also led to many passengers missing their Covid test slots on arrival, adding: “I had to make a 45 minute drive back to Manchester airport to get mine and my sons tests taken.”
Jamie added: “It seems that this has been going on for days now and there are similar scenes at LHR baggage claim areas.
“We’re going to lose a substantial amount of our holiday trying to sort out this mess which so sad when we’ve come all this way and we only have 2.5 weeks here.
“We have literally nothing, all our winter clothes, jackets, shoes, thick clothes, everything is in the cases. All my son’s and family’s Christmas presents, and my dad’s 80th birthday gifts, it’s all in the cases.
“I’m sitting here still in all the clothes that I set off in.”
Describing British Airways as ‘evasive and unhelpful’, he added: “Most of their lines are shut down and when you can get through I keep being told there’s no information available. One operator told me I could make a claim but couldn’t tell me how much for.
“My son’s shivering in the only hoodie he has with him but it seems that BA won’t cover if I have to buy him another winter jacket, boots or anything for myself.
“This is really upsetting and stressful for us, we haven’t been back to the UK for many years now especially due to COVID.”
Jamie added: “We spent over 3000 dollars on the flights and the time off work and we really wanted to make a special and memorable visit for my son who’s nine.
“Now with all his Christmas presents missing and seemingly little chance of seeing our luggage this side of the new year, we’re just going to have to try and make the best of it.
“BA should be ashamed of themselves though and owe it to the passengers to make amends financially after the way they treated us. I honestly don’t know how they can treat passengers like that and get away with it or sleep at night knowing what they’ve done.”
Each airline appoints its own baggage handler and Manchester Airport have said they are not involved in luggage logistics.
A spokesman for British Airways said: "We've apologised to customers who had their baggage delayed due to operational constraints.
"Our teams continue to work hard with a courier company to reunite customers with their baggage as quickly as possible.”
