In fairness BA has a great disadvantage in being based at the busiest airport in the world. Other airlines, particularly in the UK, generally operate into smaller airports where bags are less likely to get lost. With the opening of Terminal 5 things should improve significantly.

My parents flew to Spain with BA 2 weeks ago, their luggage (x2 cases) were not loaded onto the plane at Gatwick and were left behind. BA flew the cases out to Spain the following day, but it took a further 3 days for the cases to arrive at their villa because the baggage couriers in Spain were incapable of reading Spanish maps and finding the villa! This ruined the bulk of their weeks holiday and proved to be stressful rather than a well deserved relax for someone suffering with cancer.

The return journey was not smooth going either - their plane had a technical fault and they ended up flying back with a totally different airline after approx 6 hours delay with none of the pre-paid for meals/drinks etc or appologies - but at least their cases were loaded this time!!!

BA - Bloody Awful!!

I'm just waiting for compensation from BA at the moment. I flew with them a week ago across the pond and the in-flight entertainment system didn't work in either direction. 7 hours of boredom each way.

They've promised to sort me out though. I'll post again when I find out what they'll do.

I never fly with hold luggage these days - I manage to pack whatever I need into a carry-on bag. You can get the details of the maximum allowable sized bags (which are actually pretty large) from the BBC article here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4789593.stm
(watch for maximum weights though - some airlines have a 10kg max, although if you turn up without any hold luggage they are usually fine with whatever weight you take on board. BA actually say that you can take whatever you "can lift into the overhead lockers")

Using carry-on only ensures they can't lose my bag, and saves me a whole bunch of time in either direction: 1) I can use online check-ins and never see a check-in desk - I just turn up to the airport 40 mins before my international flight takes off and get straight on the plane, and 2) I don't have to wait for my bags to appear on the carousel at the other end.

The carousel is an easy place for your bag to go missing too, especially if it's sitting around while you're waiting in a queue in immigration. In Edinburgh airport, for instance, you can just walk off the street and take bags off the carousels as they are right next to the entry/exit doors of the terminal!

Fortunatley I cant ever remember losing any baggage at any airport anyehere in the world by any air line but alzheimers will do that to a chap, however I do have memmories of retrieving what resembled the aftermath of the blitz with luggage smashed ripped and torn, wheel missing and half the contents of the case missing, this was on the return journey so not as bad as it could have been, I do have photographic evidence of two characters loading and unloading luggage shot from a plane which shows luggage being hurled upto 20 feet and then falling onto the runway, so as a personal ticking off for you ex taber tossing baggage handlers "you are bad" thats got that off the chest so have a nice holiday and hope to see you all at the pool or those of you who got their luggage with them.

michael I am starting to enjoy your occasional rants

BA lost my bag in Dec-06.  I requested that the bag be delivered to the hotel if within 2 weeks or home if after 2 weeks; The bag did not arrive before I left and the BA representatives were unable to say when it would arrive; The online system stated they were trying to locate it! Once home I made over 100 telephone calls and sent over 15 emails in an attempt to retrieve my bag without any luck.  After six weeks the online system stated that my bag had been delivered.  However, I had not received anything at my home address, and the hotel I was staying in were unable to say whether or not they had received it. I have been asked by my insurance company to obtain a letter from BA stating that my bag cannot be found; but to this date I have still not received any information on where my bag is or any acknowledgment that my bag is now lost! I am also a Gold card holder as of this month so hoping that might give me some preferential treatment, but it will have to be a big improvement to become anything like acceptable.

In the past I have had bags delayed and BA have done very well in delivering them where I have requested and very quickly.

My opinion of BA is good regards to flying - a consistently average service, bolstered by excellent lounge facilities, is better than most airlines; but their customer support is quite possibly the worst in the world.

I today returned from a 2 week leave to the UK.  I have worked abroad for 3 years and have had no baggage problems.  This time I used BA.  We were late departing Jordan, arrived at Heathrow on time but had a one hour wait at the baggage pick up due to lack of staff.

Coming back, at check in I was checked in with the wrong name, which I spotted and had changed before boarding.  The flight departed 2 hours late and my baggage was one of 2 which didn't make it.  I am told it may arrive in Jordan tomorrow.  That's not a lot of help as I was transiting through Jordan, and have since driven to Saudi Arabia where I work.

The Royal Jordanian staff at Amman, who handle baggage for BA told me not to worry, they are used to sending luggage on to BA customers!

BA check-in staff need re-training and they need to recruit more handlers.  I now know that the check-in staff checked my baggage under a different name and routed it to Bierut instead of Amman.  The Bierut flight leaves over 24 hours after the Amman flight.

They have blamed security and fog.  This was caused by pure incompetance.

By the way.  Are your readers aware that although the BA ticket says 23kg, they may be able to check in up to 32kg (see their web-site).  And that to check more than one bag could cost £120 per item and that if you phone with a query you could face a 25 minute boredom test listening to the BA theme tune and someone telling you that your call is important.  I feel sorry for the staff.  The syptoms are of an under staffed and trained organisation.

On a plus, the landing at Heathrow 2 weeks back with a 30kt cross wind was excellent.

Finally, the aircraft did not have proper liferafts, just large floatation aids.  This gives cause for concern as Hypothermia kills more people in an incident at sea than drowning.  Apparently legal the steward told me, the slides will not support people out of the water.  A Titanic error?

Many thanks to Mark for comment 5 however it would be remiss of me not to add that British airways are not the only body who have improved things a lot no better, banks, local authorities, DVLA, and the Telephone companies have all extended their wait times on the phone to repel complaints obviously for our convenience, ABC states we should stop whinging and blaming everybody but our self for this inevitable changes so with that in mind I will take the blame because "I'm a rebell", but getting back to baggage or luggage will you parents of kids who stand at the carousel get them moved, when a kid gets hit by a case weighing 20kilo they can be serious hurt and I for one do not want to have to step over unconscious kids to get at my cases it awkward and can lead to additional accidents when you catch their noses with your feet.

i went to dubai for an 8 day luxury holiday with my partner to celebrate our 10th anniversary. BA lost my case for the whole 8 days-all my clothes-make up and medical things were in the case-it nearly caused us to break up because of the stress-it was a nightmare not a dream holiday-and i think we should be compensated for that and i'm thinking of taking them to a small claims court! they really could not care less, they are absolute rubbish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BA just seem to have lost there way over recent years. They seem to use the chaos at Heathrow as an excuse for lateness, lost baggage and poor customer service. Just not good enough.

I regularly fly around europe on Business from LHR and long ago switched to bmi in favour of BA. They have the same Heathrow handicap but somehow manage to be more punctual, dont cancel flights at the first sign of problems and Im pleased to say, have never lost my bag.

I can?t believe I didn?t read this blg before teaveling to Scotland late last month. Upon arriving in Glasgow from London Heathrow on a 10 day golfing vacation with seven other pals, BA coulen;t find our baggage. To make along story short, we arrived on a Friday, June 29th and our bags finally arrived Tuesday night, July 3rd. What made matters absoultely unacceptable is BA NEVER answerd my calls. I made over 50 calls to the baggage claim number I was given with my copy of the claim and all I heard was, ?Due to the level of calls, we are unable to take your call. Please call back?! Their web site was even worse. Not once, was the site updated even when our bags were finally delivered, 5 days later!
To not answer the phone is unacceptable customer service. BA obvioulsy doesn?t care. This is one of any reasons why the government should NEVER own anything!

Converesly, on my trip home to Los Angeles, American Airlines lost my golf clubs. The difference was each time I called I actually spoke to an American, in America who told me they dodn?t know where the bag was. It?s amazing how mush less angry I was when I at least got to speak to a human being! The bag did show up 3 days later!
I will try, at all costs, to NEVER fly BA again.

Travelled from Heathrow to China in late June 07 and when we arrived in Beijing the cases had been lost. We waited 4 days before they arrived and that was after we got a friend in the UK to pester them silly (no doubt a zillion calls).Hand on heart I will NEVER fly with them again.

I will never, ever, ever fly BA again.  We flew to Portugal on Tuesday the 9th June, and arrived to find out that out of our party of 4 not one of our suitcases arrived.  We were assured on aarival that our cases would be delivered to our appartment the following day, but this proved untrue.  Four days (and over 50 calls) later we were contacted for the first time to be told our suitcases were at Faro airport and would be delivered to us, we waited in all evening and it never arrived.  We were told the following day that 2 of our cases had been delivered to a random restaurant and 2 to a hotel that was not where we were staying!!  We were later told that the driver could not find our appartment but our cases were back at the airport and he would try again.  Having wasted a majority of our holiday waiting for our suitcases we said we would collect our cases ourself - if they couldn't find our appartment the previous day why would they the following day.  We spent over ?100 in taxi's collecting our bags, ?120 on phone calls to the airport and a ?100 each on clothing, toiletries, suncreams etc - 2 months and several letters later BA have offered us ?35!!!

I work abroad and due to the location of my work, BA is the only way to fly to and from the UK.  They lost my bags only once in 3 years of flying around 3 trips home a year.  It appeared by taxi the following morning (a Sunday) and I believe it was only due to my having a short connection time in London which was unusual.  I love BA for the in-flight hospitality more than anything - meals are good, staff are excellent, pillows, blankets, in-flight entertainment, and would never fly cheap - especially as it's long-haul I have to do.

We used to fly to Australia every year with Qantas and as BA is a codeshare we are often on a BA plane. Last time (and last one for ever) the flight was delayed over an hour and the entertainment system wasnt working - on a 24+ hour flight! My husband was whiling the time away drinking red wine and reading a book. After a few of those the steward refused to serve him any more wine. My husband decided that was understandable, though he was in no way drunk. He then went to the galley and requested  some orange juice. He was told by steward that he could have it if he said please - This was over 16 hours into a very tiring journey. To treat customers who you have already put through a very stressful and uncomfortable experience as a child (my husband is in his 50s) is quite unforgivable. I book all our flights but BA is not on the list of airlines I now look at. Unfortunately this also means that we no longer fly Qantas. Emirates and Etihad now have our business to fly to Australia. This costs BA between 2K - 4K per year just on our trips to Australia, never mind the shorter ones to Europe.