Heathrow Airport's brand new Terminal 5 is losing more than 900 bags a day, according to a union official.

Iggy Vaid, a senior shop steward at the Unite union, told MPs that no fewer than 932 bags miss their onward journey from the terminal every day.

The union claimed that the performance for bags being transferred from T5 to other terminals was even worse.

It said 80 out of every 1,000 bags being moved to other terminals for transfer passengers does not reach its final destination in time.

Steve Turner, Unite's secretary for aviation, argued that T5's baggage system was still suffering from problems and that it "is still resulting in a significant number of bags not connecting with passengers".

The union officials were speaking at a House of Commons Transport Select Committee hearing, also attended by British Airways and BAA executives.

Terminal 5 Baggage System

It was the failure of the baggage system which caused the embarrassing problems during T5's opening few days of operations at the end of March, when thousands of bags were stranded and flights cancelled and delayed.

Unite said the problem of transferring bags from T5 to other terminals was made worse because of poor links from the new facility.

Vaid told the Committee: "There are lots of transfer bags landing in T4 and they have to be manually transferred to T5 because there is no mechanical system for loading the bags".

Both BAA, Heathrow's operator, and British Airways - T5's sole operator - admitted there were still some ongoing problems with baggage handling.

Colin Matthews, BAA's chief executive, admitted to the Committee that the baggage system is still "not perfect".

However, he said this was due to congestion at the airport causing flight delays rather than any underlying, ongoing issues with the T5 baggage system.

Terminal 5 Connecting Flights

Matthews said: "If an aircraft arrives late, transfer bags do not have a chance of making their connecting flight".

BAA again apologised for the problems encountered at T5 during the shambolic opening few days.

Terry Morgan, the acting managing director of Heathrow, also said that BAA had "learnt an awful lot from the opening of T5".

BA also said that T5's performance had improved since the terminal opened.

The airline commented: "All major hub airports have issues in making sure that transfer bags travel between flights in the same way that transfer passengers do. This is due to the complexities of baggage procedures and how bags are moved through a series of security systems to get loaded on to their next aircraft."

Source - Airport International's London Reporter

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