A family's first holiday abroad since the pandemic has been thrown into chaos after claims all five of their suitcases have been lost between Manchester and Fuerteventura.
Emma Hayward, 44, her husband, two young children and elderly mother have been without clothes or essentials since they arrived on the Spanish island from Manchester Airport with Ryanair on Saturday. She claims she and her husband have already had to fork out €500 on new clothes, shoes, and toiletries for the family - and still have no idea where their bags are or when they might arrive.
The mum-of-two from Cheshire says she's made repeated attempts to contact Ryanair but claims she's been told they can't help as it's Manchester Airport's responsibility. She is now warning other holidaymakers to pack as many essential items in their hand luggage as possible, after she claims other people staying in her hotel have had the same issue.
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Emma's debacle comes as passengers flying back to Manchester on Sunday shared videos of "hundreds" of luggage left "abandoned" in the baggage halls as they waited hours for their own luggage to arrive.
Speaking to the M.E.N, Emma said: "We always mix the luggage in our bags in case one of the suitcases goes missing, but we never anticipated all of them getting lost.
"At check-in because we had soft suitcases we were asked to put them on a conveyor belt in a separate area, which I've done before. Once we landed everyone else seemed to disappear so we thought they might be coming out through special luggage.
"We waited and waited but nothing came. We had to keep going to the Ryanair reps and eventually they gave us missing bag forms to fill out. We were told our bags were still in Manchester and they would be on the next flight. I said that wasn’t until Tuesday and they said they would try and fly them out from a different airport."
Emma claims she has heard nothing since they arrived at their hotel on Saturday evening and has spent several hours on the phone to Ryanair to try and find out when their bags might arrive.
"I must have rung Ryanair 30 times and they keep saying it's Manchester Airport's fault. They said they have sent the airport a message but that they couldn't get hold of them," she said.
"Three other families at our hotel have also lost their bags as they had soft cases too. One of them has a young baby. I rang arrivals at Fuerteventura and asked if our bags were on the Tuesday flight and they said they weren’t.
"We went shopping yesterday to get some clothes as we literally have nothing and have spent about 500 euros on that alone. We are going to have to go again today now as it’s a nice hotel and you can’t really wear the same thing you wear in the daytime in the evening.
"We’ve no idea if we’ll get the money compensated but I’m just trying to focus on getting the bags back. We are lucky that we can go out and afford to buy new clothes. Some people wouldn’t have spare spending money."
Emma says the family had been looking forward to their first holiday abroad since 2019, but the first few days have been tarnished by the confusion surrounding their suitcases.
"We are self-employed and the last couple of years have been hard. It's just annoying that you can't relax because having to sort the bags out is on your mind the whole time. My mum is a lot more careful with the kind of things she wears so it's been a nightmare for her. It's really not ideal at all," she said.
"I think our bags are just sitting somewhere in Manchester Airport but who knows if we'll get them back. I can’t believe that Ryanair doesn't have a contact number for them."
The Manchester Evening News understands that issues relating to check-in and luggage are the responsibility of the airline and their designated baggage handling agent.
Ryanair said in a statement: “Due to a baggage belt failure at Manchester Airport (28 May), a small number of passengers did not receive their checked baggage upon arrival in Fuerteventura. We are working with our handling agents at Manchester Airport to reunite customers with their baggage and sincerely apologise to customers for this delay.”
