Dozens of Edinburgh Airport passengers have been pictured waiting outside during extreme temperatures in order to claim their lost luggage from aviation service Swissport.
After being overrun by a backlog of late arriving or unclaimed luggage, some passengers chose to abandon their cases instead of putting up with the delay, leading Swissport to open a temporary storage facility near the airport for people to claim their cases. The aviation service handles the baggage for airlines such as Jet2, Ryanair and TUI with hundreds of passengers impacted by the backlog of luggage.
During the heatwave that Edinburgh and the rest of the UK experienced on Monday and Tuesday, July 18 and 19, an outdoor baggage facility was opened. Pictures from the area show dozens of people gathering in an attempt to reclaim their lost luggage, a situation that Edinburgh Airport have stressed is not their responsibility.
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Swissport have previously said that they are working as hard as they can to work through a backlog of luggage and hope that passengers will be reunited with their cases soon. Reports suggest that hundreds of cases were laid out in front of passengers who turned up in the blistering heat and were forced to rummage through cases to find their own, with suggestions that anyone could turn up and pinch random luggage without any questions being asked.
A video taken by another flyer who attended the indoor storage facility last week in order to try and reclaim their bags before jetting back to the US shows hundreds of bags all piled up inside a warehouse, with several people helplessly looking around in search of their property.
It is understood that police officers also attended the gathering of people in an attempt to help the situation, as passengers called for a more clear understanding of which flight's luggage is available for collection and for it to be put in some sort of order, instead of making it a 'free for all'.
As well as posting a picture of a large crowd gathering on Tuesday, one eye witness tweeted: "Welcome to Edinburgh, Swissport for baggage reclaim…good luck with that one. Feel sorry for the staff, they can only but try, but even the police are saying it’s shambolic."
Last week, it was reported that Edinburgh Airport themselves disconnected their phone lines due to the volume of phone calls from abusive passengers complaining about their luggage, which airport officials have said is not their responsibility and an individual list of every airline's baggage handler has been added to their website.
A Swissport spokesperson said: “We would like to sincerely apologise to the passengers who were not able to collect their baggage at our Edinburgh Airport holding area. Challenging conditions at this peak travel period led to a delay transferring the baggage from the airport terminal and this was not properly communicated. We’re working closely with our partners to reunite passengers with their baggage as soon as possible.”
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