London Heathrow Airport: A luggage plane against flight chaos

Chaos has also reigned at London’s Heathrow Airport for days. Thousands of suitcases were left behind – that’s why the US airline Delta decided to take an unusual action.

Delta Airlines normally carries almost 240 people in its A330-200 aircraft. Earlier this week, such a machine flew from London to the United States without passengers, instead with around 1,000 suitcases and holdalls on board.

“Creative solution” asked

It was baggage belonging to Delta passengers. You were affected by flight cancellations and problems with a baggage handling system at London Airport and therefore had to be rebooked at short notice. Often the luggage was left behind in London.

Because of the huge amount of stranded baggage at Heathrow, a “creative solution” was decided, said a Delta spokesman. So the otherwise empty plane with the suitcases was flown from London to Detroit, from where the luggage was redistributed in the USA. The airline Delta was helped by the fact that it had to cancel the regularly scheduled passenger flight from London to Detroit that day anyway. So the machine was practically free.

Twice as many lost suitcases

According to media reports, US airlines lost around 220,000 pieces of luggage in June alone, or they were delivered late. That was more than twice as many as in the previous year.

The reasons for the flight chaos in North America and Europe include the consequences of the Covid19 pandemic. Airport operators laid off many employees during the pandemic to save money. The increasing demand now means that the airports need new employees quickly, which they often cannot get.