An Edinburgh passenger has told how she had to buy clean clothes and toiletries for her and her two children after arriving to the capital to be told their suitcases were 'unavailable.'
Monika Armet, a primary school teacher from Orkney, was visiting her family in Gdansk, Poland for a summer holiday. When flying back into the capital with her two young children, she was shocked to be told that their luggage was missing and given directions to the temporary baggage hold run by Swissport.
Without the luggage and stuck near the city airport till the next day, the 35-year-old and her kids were then forced to stay at a nearby Premier Inn and had to go to Asda to buy clean clothes and toiletries as they had nothing left in their hand luggage.
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The mum explained that when the plane touched down on the runway, they were forced to sit for nearly an hour due to 'staff shortages'. Then when they made their way to the luggage hall were abruptly told by airport staff that "no one would see their luggage tonight" and to fill in a form and come back tomorrow.
The teacher's stress was heightened when walking into the luggage area to see hundreds of suitcases lying everywhere which she described as "carnage" and was concerned anyone could walk up and take one without any kind of security check.
Speaking to Edinburgh Live, Monika said: "The captain told us that due to staff shortages we have to wait five more minutes to get the stairs attached. We landed at 9.55 pm but left the aircraft at 10.40pm"
"Then saw the carnage at the baggage reclaim area - suitcases just dumped, no security, anyone can come in from any flight and take it and go.
"There were bags from Lufthansa flight, some from Paris - we had a look as we thought it were our cases. Then someone came and said that Gdańsk flight, bags will remain on the aircraft, no one is touching them tonight.
"We were told to come at noon to Swissport reclaim area - we came this morning, just to check, tons of people there, bags everyone, staff were nice and apologetic and told us that our cases hasn’t arrived yet."
The family then stayed the night in a Premier Inn and had to resort to a nearby supermarket for basics such as clean clothes and toothbrushes and toothpaste due to the lost luggage.
The mum explained: "We were staying at Premier Inn so don’t need to check out until 12 but we want to get home. Last night we had to go to 24h Asda to buy toiletries and some clean clothes as we literally had nothing!"
Monika is also apprehensive to make the 300-mile journey off shore to Orkney as she doesn't know when she will come back and after all the chaos doesn't trust the company to safely ship their luggage to them.
She said: "We already had the hotel booked. I can’t really leave without the cases as I have no idea when I could come back for them, and no compensation was ever mentioned."
"Some people at the airport said that they had medication in their cases and that they had to travel onwards from Edinburgh and the man just said “You can shout all you like, your bags aren’t getting anywhere” or something similar."
"There is police here who are saying that that this has been happening for weeks. They announced yesterday at 2pm there will be no more bags delivered today - so we'd have to come back tomorrow.
"We have no idea when we will get them. We were supposed to return home tomorrow but I guess that won’t be happening."
Due to being with two small children the mum decided not to spend another night camped out in a nearby Premier Inn while Swissport hold their luggage in the outdoor handling area, and take the long trip back to Orkney with hopes that their belongings will eventually get shipped to them.
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A Swissport spokesperson said: “Summer months are always exceptionally busy, and the aviation sector is under increasing pressure at the moment. With high volumes of off-schedule luggage arriving daily at Edinburgh, we’ve brought in additional resource to support the team.
"We understand this is a really frustrating situation for passengers and we’re working closely with our airline and airport partners to securely process these bags as fast as we can.”
Adding: “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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