Leave time for a luggage lag

Just because you make a tight connection, it doesn't mean your luggage will, writes SIMON CALDER.

The comment from a British Airways steward to an Edinburgh-bound passenger on a delayed flight from Singapore to Heathrow underlined the root problem facing the world's major airlines: "You'll make the connection, but I doubt very much that your bags will."

"Self-loading cargo," as passengers are pejoratively referred to, can move from one plane to another much more quickly than their luggage.

The passenger in question was connecting between BA's main terminals, One and Four, which are geographically the farthest apart.

The passenger train between the two takes just five minutes, allowing passengers to make quick changes between planes. But the business of identifying a single piece of luggage from a jumbo-load arriving at Heathrow at the same time as a dozen other flights, and transferring it to the connection flight, fails all too often.

It seems reasonably simple if you say it quickly. All you've got to do is take bags off one aircraft and load them on another. But the millions of travellers who fly during the northern hemisphere summer should be aware that, according to a British Airways' internal estimate, up to 10 per cent of luggage carried on all major airlines goes missing.

While the company refuses to divulge official figures, the one in 10 figure is widely accepted within the organisation. Some of the bags disappear forever; most turn up eventually.

The Oneworld Alliance makes much of the "seamless transfers" between member airlines; so too does its arch-rival, the Star Alliance.

But as more people pass through the world's major airports, the luggage transfer systems are bursting at the seams.

Some seasoned travellers put the problem down to incompetent airport management or just feckless baggage handlers.

However, industry insiders believe airlines are making the situation worse by allowing insufficient time for baggage to be unloaded from one flight and loaded on another. Airlines are in fierce competition with each other, and offer short connection times to attract passengers.

The travel trade adds to the problem, insiders say, by booking passengers on unofficial connecting flights, which allow passengers to make it by the skin of their teeth but don't allow enough time for baggage transfer. In theory, the passengers should be warned that these "illegal connections" are at their own risk, and some airlines will try to weed out customers who have been sold tickets for a "mission impossible" connection advising them to book on a later flight. Baggage can also go astray because of late flights.

Simon Evans, chief executive of the UK Air Transport Users' Council, points out that the compensation on offer from airlines for lost luggage is pitiful. As with much of the legislation affecting travellers, the conditions were laid down by the 1929 Warsaw Convention. Under its terms, passengers are entitled to a maximum of about £15 ($51) a kilogram for lost luggage, irrespective of whether it contained expensive electronic equipment or soiled undies.

"If a passenger asks an airline what it is going to do for him while he waits for his luggage, they might say, 'Nothing.' Or they might tell him to go and buy a toothbrush or clean underwear and he will be reimbursed if he produces receipts," says Evans.

"My advice to passengers whose luggage has been lost is not to go out and buy expensive replacements and expect the airline to pay."

The recently introduced European passengers' charter has done nothing to help. It merely mutters that airlines should reunite travellers with their luggage "as quickly as possible."

It will come as something of a surprise to those who have lost their property to learn that there are relatively sophisticated systems at work for transferring luggage. In most large aircraft, luggage that will need to be switched is put in separate containers, some of which can weigh up to 1.5 tonnes. On smaller aeroplanes the luggage is set aside in a special part of the hold.

When it arrives at an airport the container is off-loaded by a large elevator vehicle and placed on a train. It is then taken to a conveyor belt, which transfers it to the relevant terminal. There the luggage is sorted by hand and carried on a motorised trolley to the correct spur, where aircraft await their passengers.

The complexity of the system means there is considerable potential for delay. The rise in the number of passengers using airports has also put the system under strain. In 1996-97 some 56 million people passed through Heathrow, but by 2000-01 the figure had risen to 64 million, a third of whom switched to other flights.

Steve Double, of British Airways, says that other airports such as Frankfurt, Schipol and Charles de Gaulle in Paris have far worse records than Heathrow, even though the London airport has the tightest security in the world.

If a bag misses a flight it has to go through a tight security procedure to ensure it is clean, a system tightened up after the Lockerbie bombing. At Heathrow, bags are x-rayed to make sure they do not contain explosives. These security procedures inevitably add time to the process.

Airlines are not happy with the situation. It can cost a great deal to reunite passengers with their luggage. As well as the time spent tracking bags, couriers have to be hired to deliver the luggage, when it turns up, to the passenger's home or hotel.

However, it seems that the cost of allowing passengers and luggage a more realistic transfer time is even greater.

"It's difficult not to be somewhat cynical," says Evans. "After all, if the airline loses 20 bags it might be liable for £6000. If it lengthens journey times it could lose a lot more."

- INDEPENDENT