Delta sends empty plane to pick up 1,000 luggage stranded at London’s Heathrow Airport

Delta Air Lines Inc. passengers who lost their luggage due to operational chaos at London’s Heathrow Airport got extra help in reuniting with their belongings when the carrier deployed a wide-body aircraft to bring 1,000 bags back to the U.S.

Delta’s “creative solution” came after it cancelled regularly scheduled London-to-Detroit Flight 17 on July 11 because of passenger limits imposed by Heathrow, the Atlanta-based airline said Wednesday. Travellers were shifted to other flights, and Delta used the empty Airbus SE A330-200 to retrieve the lost bags.

The luggage was returned to Detroit and forwarded to customers from there, Delta said Wednesday.

“We’ve gone as far as recently we had a separate charter just to repatriate bags back to customers that have been stranded because of some of the operational issues,” Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said on a conference call to discuss quarterly financial results.

Heathrow has struggled to keep up with bags over the past few weeks because of understaffing and a surge in travel. The crisis has led luggage to pile up after some passengers were forced to leave the terminals without their bags.

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post