T5 luggage sent to Italy ... then sent back to UK

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There's nothing more annoying than your suitcase going missing as you set off on your holidays.

But long-suffering passengers who will soon be reunited with their luggage lost at Heathrow's Terminal 5 during its shambolic opening are doubly angry, after discovering it went on a longer holiday than they did.

The suitcases and bags are now being sent back to the London airport after a two-week trip to Milan.

British Airways had the luggage sent to a warehouse near the Italian city's airport to be sorted when the Terminal 5 baggage management system failed.

The plan was to then send the luggage to passengers staying across Europe who had been forced to travel without it in the days after the £4.3bn terminal opened.

But BA was forced to admit that several hundred pieces are now in the process of being packed up and flown back to London because their owners have finished their trips and arrived back home. At least 20,000 bags piled up at Terminal 5 when the luggage system failed and at least 5,000 were sent to Milan to be sorted.

But instead of being flown out to Italy, the luggage was taken on a 24-hour, 780-mile drive from London so that security checks could be completed more quickly.

By the time many of the bags were finally sent from Milan to forwarding addresses in Europe, their owners were back in the UK.

A British Airways spokeswoman said that overall, the system had worked well.

"The majority of the bags we sent to Milan have made it to the people in time for their holidays," she added.

But she admitted that some people who have returned from their trips have still not been reunited with their missing baggage.

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