Mary's Ruined Honeymoon: Fallout from the BA baggage system failure

A baggage system failure at Heathrow Terminal 5 on 11 July 2025 has affected thousands of passengers. But there has been no public acknowledgment of its scale and no proper complaints process for the people whose holidays were ruined — despite huge personal and financial losses.

Mary reached out to us to help her with her ongoing complaint to British Airways. Her and her partner’s honeymoon was ruined by the baggage failure and she has felt completely abandoned by BA during and in the aftermath of the experience.

Her story exposes just one example of the failure of BA to support their customers who have had to pay out of their pockets to cover the losses and costs incurred.

This is Mary’s story…

My husband and I flew Business Class from London Heathrow to Nashville on 11 July 2025 for our honeymoon, with onward travel to Mexico. We had saved hard for months to be able to afford what was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime.

When we arrived at Terminal 5, we were caught in a complete baggage belt failure. We were told by staff to leave our suitcases in an untagged pile. This felt wrong, but we complied after the pilot and crew assured us before take-off that all bags were loaded. That, we would soon find out, turned out to be completely false.

“[W]e received inconsistent and inaccurate updates from BA’s outsourced call centre…”

After landing in Nashville, it became apparent that neither of our bags had arrived with us. We immediately raised a lost baggage claim. Over the next four days, we received inconsistent and inaccurate updates from BA’s outsourced call centre — including claims that the bags were still at Heathrow, then that they were en route, then that one had arrived.

Having finally come to the end of this nightmare I have now pieced together what ultimately happened:

One bag was sent to Nashville against instructions.

We had landed in Nashville on Friday, and had repeatedly requested that all remaining luggage be kept at Heathrow over the phone and via their online tracker on Monday evening. We received assurances it would be grounded. But this bag was mistakenly loaded onto a flight to Nashville on Tuesday afternoon.

This meant that this bag arrived in Nashville after we had already cancelled the Mexico leg of our trip. We only discovered its arrival thanks to a helpful member of staff at Nashville airport — not BA, who remained silent. Thanks to this member of staff it was able to travel back to London with us.

The second bag never left Heathrow, but then was nearly flown to Nashville anyway!

First, we received a text on Monday morning saying it was en route to us, but it wasn’t. After we returned home early, having decided to cut our honeymoon short, we were told by BA staff at Heathrow that one system said it was in Nashville and another said it was in Heathrow.

Despite this obvious confusion and fault in the system, we were confidently given assurances the bag would not leave Heathrow. However, just 10 minutes after getting home from Heathrow we received a text saying it was being loaded onto a flight to Nashville!

We were forced to drive back to Heathrow ourselves and physically stop the bag from being put on the flight. Only then were we finally able to retrieve it!

“Throughout this ordeal we have felt completely unsupported by British Airways.”

Because of the baggage system failure, and the subsequent failure to get our bags onto our outgoing flight, we were left without clothing or essentials for days and forced to cancel our onward travel to Mexico as well as associated hotels, flights, and transfers.

On top of the stress, exhaustion and disappointment at having to cancel our honeymoon, we have paid out of pocket for replacement items, hotel extensions, and last-minute return flights home. Throughout this ordeal we have felt completely unsupported by British Airways.

In trying to deal with the aftermath of the baggage system failure, it has become clear that the BA complaints system is not built to handle multi-department issues or mass-scale disruption: the online form offers no way to explain a case as complex as this.

There has been no public acknowledgment of the incident, no dedicated claims process, and no timeline for compensation. It is unacceptable that customers are expected to pay up front for the airline’s operational failure and “hope” for reimbursement later.

“To me it seems like they fail to grasp the magnitude of the disruption they’ve caused.”

What I need is some accountability from British Airways for the scale of this failure and compensation to cover our replacement flight, missed Mexico travel, hotel changes and essentials purchased due to baggage loss. At the moment they are saying that they will only cover out of pocket expenses which, to my understanding, is their legal obligation and pretty much represents the bare minimum they have to do.

What they have failed to address is the ‘why?’ of it all: why did the pilot lie to the passengers onboard the original flight and why did they direct customers to a self-service interface they know isn’t accurate or reliable?

To me it seems like BA fail to grasp the magnitude of the disruption they’ve caused. For us it was a honeymoon but if I think back to the day we checked in at T5 there’s several families going away. We’re lucky it was out of pocket expenses for two adults, I imagine with several children it’s a very difficult situation to cover.

Thousands of customers trust BA as a national carrier and yet they show no regard for the human cost of their failures – in the process of complaining all I’ve seen is indifference.

Call for Stories

Were you also caught up in the baggage system failure at Heathrow Terminal 5 on 11 July 2025?

We want to shine a spotlight on the experiences of BA customers – many of whom have incurred huge personal and financial losses. If you or someone you know had their baggage get stuck, lost, or stranded, submit your story to us so we can help get your voice heard.

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If you have any thoughts on this topic, or any other consumer issues you would like us to cover, feel free to get in touch with us at support@resolver.co.uk.