A British Airways passenger who travelled with the carrier to Edinburgh has hit out at staff who allegedly lost her bag in the midst of loading it onto her flight.
Luxury brand trainer Carmen, 35, was booked on board a flight from London Heathrow to the Scottish capital on June 4 for work. But as she approached security, BA staff told her to surrender her cabin bag because of a lack of room in the overhead lockers on the plane.
The bag was meant to be loaded into the aircraft hold, but when Carmen touched down in Edinburgh it was nowhere to be found. More than a week on, back home in Frankfurt, Germany, Carmen says she is none-the-wiser as to the whereabouts of her personal belongings.
She told Edinburgh Live: "At this point I'm beyond mad and just very emotional. I'm hoping to annoy them as much as possible on social media in case they just try and ignore me.
"I think they simply don't care though. There are so many different things this has impacted.
"I sleep with a mouth guard as I grind my teeth and that was in my bag so I have barely slept and I'm experiencing headaches all the time. It has ruined the last ten days."
Carmen recalled that the issues began as she queued for security at Heathrow – and the problems escalated from there. Even now, British Airways does not appear to know where the bag is.
She said: "I arrived at the airport and they were stopping people before security, which I have never seen before, and claimed there was no room on the overhead compartments. They just took everyone's bag, nobody really had a choice to refuse.
"I'm now kicking myself as I didn't physically see them put the tag on it but it was chaotic as there were a lot of people all handing over their bags. When I got into Edinburgh I stood at the belt and they seemed to get the cases out really quickly.
"After five or ten minutes it just stopped and me and one other person were left standing without our luggage. At that point I was already fuming as I knew what I was going to have to go through to get it back."
Over the last week, she claims British Airways has told her it flew the bag to Edinburgh, before later saying it could not tell her where the suitcase had gone. The airline has also allegedly asked Carmen to describe the contents of the case so it can verify them, before reportedly changing its stance on how it would verify that the bag belonged to her.
She continued: "I informed them that I was no longer in Edinburgh on the phone but they still sent it there as 'that is where it was supposed to go'. On day seven, so Sunday, 11, I was told there had been a potential match which they found and I was to describe three items inside and they would send a picture.
"They said they would send the picture one or two hours later, but guess what? I never got an email. I phoned two days later as I was too stressed to deal with it, only for another colleague to say taking pictures is not part of the procedure and they can't do it.
"Today, day ten, I called and they said the bag is still missing and they haven't located it yet which just goes against so many updates I have been given. I'm starting to doubt I'll ever get my bag back.
"The whole thing doesn't make sense. If I don't keep calling I'll literally get no update. They have told me so many things now I don't know what to believe."
British Airways says it is endeavouring to find Carmen's bag and get it back to her. A spokesperson said: "Our teams are working hard to reunite our customer with their baggage as quickly as possible."
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