BA gets bad baggage rap

Brought to you by eTNW... BRITISH Airways (BA) had the highest number of mishandled baggage incidents of all the Association of European Airlines (AEA) members in 2006. This is according to a report released by the Air Transport Users Council (AUC). BA was ranked the worst with 23 incidents per 1 000 passengers, followed by Air Portugal with 21 incidents per 1 000 passengers and Lufthansa with 18,1. BA director of operations, Geoff Watt, admitted that the airline’s performance in 2006 was unacceptable. “We have undertaken a significant amount of work to improve our performance in the current working environment and we therefore look forward to an improved operational performance this summer,” said Watt. In 2006, a total of 5,6m bags were mishandled by all 24 AEA airlines. This report excluded Virgin Atlantic, bmi, Cyprus Airways, Aer Lingus, JAT Airways and Olympic Airlines, as these airlines did not submit the relevant data. Chana Viljoen (chanav@nowmedia.co.za)