We arrived Friday evening on a delayed domestic. I made the massive error of collecting the wrong bag from the belt - same as mine - never done this before and realised at the hotel reception in central London. Nightmare.

Hot footed it back to LHR to return the bag and collect mine to find literally zero BA staff anywhere in the terminal and no help on the phone. In the interim call from hotel to advise the couple whose bag we had were at the same hotel!! Confirmed name and flight details - had seen our bag last on the carousel and twigged what we had done. Delighted to reunite them and apologies ++

Next morning returned to LHR to find a queue on people at a single phone point in arrivals and no BA staff present. Total nightmare. Eventually staff arrived and one was unhelpful ++ and basically took my tag, looked it up, said it’s ‘not here’ as last scanned onto the belt then nothing since so someone ‘must have taken it’. About to leave the airport having been told ‘fill a form in’ only to have a phone call from another staff member (James) who had also taken my details and was searching the left bags for my case.

Gave a basic description, he found it and escorted me through the arrivals security to collect it. Amazing service. Golden ticket sent and told him how grateful I was. Other staff member less so…

Was left with the impression the customer facing bag handling support at LHR is less well staffed than a basic outstation airport. How is this the case? Forgive the pun (!)