Travellers and holidaymakers are more likely to lose their luggage with British Airways (BA) than any other major European airline, according to new figures released today.
The Air Transport Users Council (AUC), a passenger watchdog, added that the problem was getting worse and called for more "name and shame" league tables .
Last year BA lost an average of 23 bags per 1,000 passengers it carried, and passengers, across 24 of Europe’s largest airlines, had reported more than 5.6 million bags had gone missing, according to data from the Association of European Airlines (AEA).
TAP Air Portugal was the second worst culprit, at 21 bags per 1,000 passengers, followed by Lufthansa with 18.1 and Air France, which mislaid 16.6.
The AUC also said that the actual figure for European carriers could be even worse as some AEA airlines such as Virgin Atlantic and bmi do not provide luggage data, along with budget airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair who are not members of the AEA.
The council added that passengers on board connecting flights were more likely to lose their luggage, especially when changing at major airports.
The AEA report showed that while 85 per cent of missing bags were reunited with their owners within 48 hours, many were never returned at all.
In a response Geoff Want, BA's operations director said, "The volume of hold baggage going through Heathrow, the change in security procedures and some baggage system failures within terminal four have not helped our performance, but we accept that overall, the level of service we offered to our customers has not been up to an acceptable standard."
"We fully apologise to customers who have been affected by delayed baggage in the past year."
He concluded, "We have undertaken a significant amount of work to improve our performance in the current working environment, and we look forward to an improved operational performance this summer, and in the future when (Heathrow) Terminal 5 opens (in March 2008)."
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