BA sends bags by road to Milan

The airline will use lorries to transport some of the 20,000 bags that have built up at Heathrow following the 430 flight cancellations since the new building opened on Thursday.

Luggage will be processed at a "specialist sorting facility" in Italy before the items are reunited with passengers in mainland Europe.

Although it takes 24 hours to reach Milan by lorry, BA believes it is still quicker than transporting the bags by air as they will not have to wait to be screened.

Luggage belonging to domestic passengers is being driven to Manchester and Scotland for processing.

Faults with the automated baggage system at T5 means it cannot be used to process the delayed bags, leaving staff struggling to cope.

BA said it was unable to offer any guarantees on when passengers waiting for missing luggage could expect to be reunited with their suitcases. At current rates the backlog could take weeks to clear.

Many bags belonging to holidaymakers are likely to find their way to the correct hotels only after the owners have left. They may then be returned to Milan to be sorted again by the private contractor the airline has employed.

A BA spokesman said: "When a bag travels with its owner it is screened once. When a bag flies without its owner it requires an enhanced level of screening.

"We ask our customers to keep us updated if their address details change. That way we can ensure that their bags will be returned to them at the right location." Tighter security for bags being transported without their owners was introduced in the wake of the Lockerbie disaster in 1988. The bomb which downed the Boeing 747, killing 270 people, was in an unaccompanied suitcase.

BA has offered passengers " immediate expenses" if their bags are lost on their way out to a holiday, but has not specified the amount customers can expect.

A family going on a skiing holiday in Switzerland last year received only £100 from BA despite having to spend £1,000 on replacement ski equipment when their bags were lost for a fortnight.

Meanwhile, plans to give the Olympic torch a grand reception at Terminal 5 have been shelved because of the fiasco.

Organisers of the London leg of the torch relay have instead decided to re-route the Olympic flame through the royal suite at Heathrow when it arrives in Britain from St Petersburg on Saturday evening.

The Chinese-led relay team was due to use the VIP section at the new terminal, but will instead land at the dedicated building used by the Queen and other dignitaries arriving on private jets.

A spokesman for airport operator BAA said: "This is standard practice for VIP arrivals at Heathrow. The Athens torch relay crew arrived in the same way in 2004."