Aer Lingus - Heathrow Baggage breakdown June 22nd

hurleronditch

As the title suggests, there was a widespread failure of the baggage systems in T1 in LHR on Sunday last.

All belts were down so they had to corale all bags in the check in area to manually sort and deliver to the aircraft.

As expected almost no bags made it on the flight, with only 4 bags out of 92 on our flight making the trip.

I had checked in my golf clubs, worth over €2500 all in, so very valuable to me. According to Aer Lingus' twitter account all bags are back in dublin now, and it's simply the process of sorting & delivering, but the world tracer baggage tracker tells me my bag has not been located.

Does anyone know how to escalate this, or at least find out that my clubs are in the country?

Is there anyone in EI ground ops who could confirm they're still sorting a room full of bags and haven't just lost mine etc? I'm flying DUB-LGW-DUB tomorrow with EI so I'll ask at the baggage desk on my way back through

Tenger

hurleronditch wrote: »

As the title suggests, there was a widespread failure of the baggage systems in T1 in LHR on Sunday last.

.......

Is there anyone in EI ground ops who could confirm they're still sorting a room full of bags and haven't just lost mine etc? I'm flying DUB-LGW-DUB tomorrow with EI so I'll ask at the baggage desk on my way back through

I don't have and you actual facts or insider info to give you......but if EI Twittter says they are all in DUB I would expect exactly what you have guessed at....a large room full of bags which need to be manually check (as the normal daily baggage process continues) Once the bags have been ID'ed they then need to be taken landside (thru customs who may want to X-ray them) and finally sorted in delivery options. I would guess that EI will try to deliver geographically located bags in a bunch in one vehicle.

I have no idea of the length of time this will take but I would guess 3-4 days? Depends on how many bags the problem has dumped in EI's lap. But of course no harm asking at the baggage desk in DUB.

Lustrum

You have to remember as well that there were probably the same amount of bags missing from several flights if the belts were down for the day - the EI staff could have hundreds of bags to get through.

Their baggage tracing office is not huge, and probably staffed by 3-4 at a time, who may also be dealing with passengers out front as well as trying to sort all the rush bags out. Once they are sorted and sent for delivery, as tenger says, they'll group bags geographically, so even when you bag does leave the airport, if you're last to get to it could take another 4-5 hours depending on traffics etc.

Unfortunately in this case you just have to trust the info you've been given. I'd say less than .0001% of bags completely disappear, so it will turn up. Just be patient

vevo

hurleronditch wrote: »

Is there anyone in EI ground ops who could confirm they're still sorting a room full of bags and haven't just lost mine etc?

Staff in EI baggage are probably too busy sorting bags to be reading this forum

hurleronditch

vevo wrote: »

Staff in EI baggage are probably too busy sorting bags to be reading this forum

Thanks for the helpful response. I would actually imagine at least one airline employee has browsed and posted in this forum over the years, just thought I might get lucky.

Large corporations also have things called social media departments/reps these days, they're not all just cockpit jockeys, trolley dollies and bag luggers.

Anywho, enough with the bad sarcasm, the ladies in the gold circle lounge were very helpful this morning and hopefully I'll be able to pick it up in the baggage hall on my way through in a few hours

Thanks for the help

PinOnTheRight

If the figures for the number of bags left behind I have heard are correct, it's quite astonishing and a mammoth task to re-deliver them.

I vaguely recall seeing a mention of World Tracer not being applicable in this situation due to the sheer volume of bags involved

vevo

hurleronditch wrote: »

.

Anywho, enough with the bad sarcasm, the ladies in the gold circle lounge were very helpful this morning and hopefully I'll be able to pick it up in the baggage hall on my way through in a few hours

Thanks for the help

Sorry couldn't resist. Glad you got your bag back

Tenger

vevo wrote: »

Sorry couldn't resist. Glad you got your bag back

I giggled........ sorry OP. Hope you have been reunited with your golf clubs at this stage. Nice that the GC staff were able to help you out.
I saw elsewhere that they have a shiny new A350 model in the DUB lounge?

On a tangent looking at the EI facebook page they do seem to be very proactive in responding to pax issues. (Luckily haven't needed to do this myself yet)