Heathrow Terminal 5 passengers facing luggage chaos

Passengers travelling from Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 could face flying without their luggage after days of technical problems.

Thousands have been left without clothes and equipment around the world British Airways, which is the only airline to fly from the terminal, has been bombarded with complaints.

According to the Sunday Times, it could be days before BA workers clear the backlog and send out missing luggage.

The problem reportedly began on Thursday when the IT system failed and staff were forced to move luggage to aircrafts by hand.

On its website, Heathrow Airport said: "We are experiencing intermittent issues with the Terminal 5 baggage system, which has caused some bags to be processed manually. While passengers can currently check in bags, our engineers are working hard to identify the root cause of the problems. Passengers may wish to carry essential items in hand baggage where possible.

"Manual processing has led to some bags not making flights in time but flights are still operating as normal. We are very sorry for any passengers affected and we are working with airlines to reunite passengers with their bags as quickly as possible."

A British Airways spokesperson told Mail Online: "On Thursday morning, the baggage system in Terminal 5 suffered an IT problem which affected how many bags could be accepted for each flight.

"We are very sorry for the difficulties this has caused and we have been working hard with the airport to make sure we reunite all of our customers with their luggage as quickly as possible."

It is not clear how many bags are waiting to reach their destinations.

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