Comment: Lost luggage

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As the holiday season approaches its peak, the airlines once again show their least attractive side to passengers by failing to reunite them with their luggage when they reach their destination. The Unite union spokesman Steve Turner revealed yesterday that British Airways is still losing nearly 1,000 bags a day in Terminal 5 alone as passengers transfer between flights - an extraordinary figure. Yet the response of British Airways is to claim that baggage performance is significantly better than it was this time last year. If so, it suggests that BA's previous performance is even more dismal than most people had thought. What's more, the figure given by Mr Turner applies only to transfer passengers; there will be further bag losses for passengers on direct flights.

Some of the reasons why BA's luggage handling was so poor at the opening of Terminal 5 is clear from the submission yesterday made by BAA, its owner, to the Commons Select Committee on Transport. The company's chief executive, Colin Matthews, said that communications between BAA and British Airways had broken down before T5 opened, BA ground staff had not been given proper training and its management had drastically underestimated the number of staff that would be needed. The postmortem into the shambles that was the opening of T5 would be less depressing if it were not evident that baggage handling is still so woefully inadequate. With so many people about to go on holiday, this is one fundamental part of BA's service it has to get right.