BA shambles as luggage is sent by LAND

Staff shortages over the weekend were blamed for the chaos which airport bosses admit is set to continue for the rest of the year - and likely to worsen at the height of the summer getaway.

In a bizarre twist, BA was forced to send nearly a thousand stranded bags by juggernaut to Italy to be sorted out - because there wasn't room to do it at overcrowded Heathrow.

To add to the misery for travellers, 4,000 cabin-crew at rival Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic announced a ballot for strike action over the August bank Holiday weekend after pay talks with the airline collapsed.

The latest Heathrow crisis left thousands of passengers without bags when ten return flights at the weekend were cancelled because of a lack of baggage handlers and check-in staff.

Passengers were forced to travel on without their luggage and a mountain of 6,000 bags was left stranded amid downpours on the tarmac at Heathrow airport.

To clear the backlog the airline was shipping them all to a central Italian clearing house in Milan to be sorted.

And with a lack of baggage space on subsequent flights, almost a thousand of the bags are having to be driven hundreds of miles across the Continent by lorry.

The airline apologised to its customers and said it hoped to have returned all baggage by Tuesday afternoon - two days after the problems first flared up.

One airport source said: "There are going to be some pretty annoyed BA customers. We've heard of coals to Newcastle, but bags to Milan takes the biscuit."

The flights were cancelled on Sunday through a combination of bad weather and a shortage of staff.

An airport source said the airline was short of 30 baggage handlers and 40 check-in staff.

The chaos left a mountain of 4,000 bags lying in the rain on the tarmac near Terminal 4 and another 2,000 lying near Terminal 1.

The luggage had been transferred to a hangar and staff were working through the night to send it on to passengers.

British Airways confirmed that around 15 per cent of those bags were being driven in lorries and the rest sent by plane. Once sorted at Milan, they will be flown to their final destinations.

A BA spokesman said: "We apologise to customers for any inconvenience they may have experienced.

"A number of passenger bags were delayed due to a range of operational issues at Heathrow on Sunday.

"Teams are working through the night and we expect to have cleared the backlog by early Tuesday afternoon."

He said passengers would be entitled to apply for compensation, but cases would be assessed individually.

The past 12 months have seen repeated misery for travellers from Heathrow with a series of luggage problems.

Official figures show that BA had lost more bags in 2006 than any other major European carrier.

Nearly 30,000 BA passengers lost their luggage in a three week shambles in December and January when baggage belts broke twice and heavy fog threw schedules into chaos.

Last summer, a security crackdown in the wake of an alleged plot to bomb transatlantic airliners saw chaos at Heathrow after the introduction of tough new rules on hand luggage.

And in April, thousands of British Airways customers endured hours of chaos at Heathrow's Terminal 4 when the company's new computerised baggage handling system failed on its very first day - again affecting 6,000 pieces of luggage.

Cabin crews at Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic have announced a vote on strike action over pay.

Their union Amicus rejected a two per cent pay rise, compared to 4.6 per cent at British Airways.

A strike by 4,000 cabin crew would cripple more than 30 daily flights from Heathrow, Gatwick and other airports around the world - including services to the US.

Amicus national officer Bryan Boyd said: "Virgin face the prospect of industrial action over the August bank Holiday weekend. They are failing to recognise the professionalism and loyalty of their cabin crew."

Virgin Atlantic said its pay and conditions offer was "very fair" and that "our door remains open to talks."

Bosses at airport operator BAA have warned that millions of air passengers face a year of travel misery and chaos until the new Heathrow Terminal 5 opens next year.