Hi guys -
I have credible reason to believe my checked luggage has been stolen or deliberately tampered with by the outsourced check-in team at an airport this week.
It did not arrive in London, and according to the BA Baggage Service was loaded onto the plane and then taken off before take-off.
Without sharing names of the individuals involved, I have their details and I would appreciate either someone at BA following up, or I will inform the Police.
Ultimately, I just want my bag recovered and returned to London safely.
BA should take steps to improve the screening, training and vetting of their staff. Some of their employees there are very suspect.

Any other ideas / suggestions as to a way forward would be most welcome,
Thanks

Baggage handling and checkin staff are two very different teams - the baggage handling after you gave your bag to checkin is usually completely outsourced to the airport bagagge handler. Checkin staff wouldnt load or unload your bag onto aircraft. Is there a reason you believe checkin staff themselves did this?
Also do you have this in writing from BA about being loaded and then unloaded - this is fairly uncommon, unless you miss your plane (or show up at gate at t-19 or so)!

Not sure what your ‘credible reason’ is? There are reasons why a bag might be loaded and unloaded, e.g. missing tags, disconnect between systems making BA think you had not boarded the aircraft. With respect, unless you are able to elaborate about why you think it is ‘criminal’ your best bet is to follow it up with BA through the usual channels. IMHO (and experience) many times in life we assume conspiracy and it just turns out to be a cock up.

Quite the statement �

Why do you think the check in staff would have access to a bag once it�s left the check in desk?
Have BA stated it was placed onto the aircraft and removed? Why do you think the bag is stolen?

From what you�ve stated above it�s not unusual for bags to be loaded and removed for weight and balance reasons, if you have reported it missing with BA they will put it on the next flight to London & courier it to your address

Curious - are you able to share the credible reasons for suspecting criminal behaviour that you allude to? That might better inform responses.

If you’ve not got your luggage what’s the credible reason you have your luggage has been tampered with,

As mentioned there could be a number of reasons for it being loaded and off,landed if that’s the case. Make a complaint at BA,COM and if you believe a criminal offence has been committed then you should report it to the police even if you get your luggage back.

If your checked bag did not arrive at your destination, the first step is to file a missing-baggage report with BA promptly upon arrival. BA is liable up to the limits of the Montreal convention. If you have some particular reason to believe that your bag was stolen (as opposed to, say, removed for weight/balance issues), then by all means file a complaint with the police agency which has jurisdiction over the Airport.

If BA knows that the bag was removed from the aircraft before take-off, that suggests that the bag was scanned after removal. While anything is possible, it would strike me as odd for a thief to scan the bag he was stealing.

If you were on an international flight (as I presume you were) then TSA would scan your checked baggage and could, if they wished, open it ad check the contents. I have regularly collected bags at LHR that, when opened, contain a slip of paper from TSA explaining that they had opened the bag and examined the contents.

Thus, while you may have evidence that your bag was tampered with, I doubt you have evidence that the behaviour was abnormal, and certainly not criminal.

If you suspect some criminal activity, then contact the local police authorities.

If you have evidence of criminal behaviour, you should go to the police and share your information with them. In my view, FT is not the right place to discuss such allegations.

You aren't going to win many friends around here by creating a thread with such an explosive title when the actual reported events are just things many of us have experienced as routine occurances.
Bags go missing all the time, TSA interfere with baggage all the time. Any systematic malfeasance in baggage handling is routinely caught by authorities.
If you had titled your thread "bag didn't arrive, what should I do?" you would have got a lot more sympathy.

Let's dial this down a bit. Mostly bags get through the system. Sometimes bags get delayed, low percentage, but it happens. Typically they resurface after a few days. You have not seen the bag - it seems - so at this point you don't know what has happened. In a few days, if you go through the usual WorldTracer route, you should be reunited with the bag. It's tedious and there are often complaints about the process, but it tends to work in the final analysis. Air tags help on the information flow, but typically won't get the bag to you any faster, and for some people it adds to their stress level. It sometimes happens that bags are mis-labelled and thus removed after a "onboard" scan, relabelled and rescanned. This is sometimes behind those slightly mysterious comments from the captain in their briefing about "paperwork issues with baggage reconciliation". Usually check-in staff won't touch a bag after they have pressed the button that sends it off down the belt into the baggage warehouse.

Contents going from bags? Yes, very rarely it happens. Rare because if you have a decent job at an airport then being fired and possibly prosecuted for �50 of second hand junk isn't usually a good equation, particularly in places where salaries are high. The TSA have the power to remove things from bags, and occasionally they remove silly things like alarm clocks and theatrical props out of an abundance of caution, but rarely will the sky fall in. If something has been removed under BA's stewardship, which should not have been removed, then BA or your travel insurance will pay up, another bit tedium but it shouldn't let it get to you. One of the few advantages in getting old is understanding how the things that really matter - affection, friendship, family, pets, faith, hope, charity - are usually safe and waiting for us.

By all means seek more help here on luggage tracking and follow up, but it's not too complicated and is explained on the BA website. If you have Property Irregularity Report then you are half way there.

I'm sorry to hear this has happened to you, its frustrating to lose bags, it was a way of life for me for a number of years when coming from the DWF and IAH into LGW and connecting from LHR to LCA. Very rarely did they not eventually turn up.

Assuming you have done all the usual paperwork for missing/delayed bags, as a gold card, you may find speaking to that team is more productive than the prospect of having someone from BA read this thread and intervene. I'm not sure from your post how long ago this occurred but I'd be inclined to let a little time pass before reporting it as a crime to the police, (on indeed suggesting to BA that is your intention) who I fear may not be very interested unless there is some specific information you have to hand about the incident pointing to unequivocal criminality that has not been shared here. As others have mentioned, once the bags have vanished down the conveyor belt, they are out of the check in staff's orbit unless you feel they are working in concert with the baggage handling team, but if so, it would seem odd for the bag to be scanned and loaded, and then removed and scanned again.

As a general rule, the theft of bags once they have gone airside is tricky, due the security involved of getting back landside. Bags going missing tend to occur after the customs hall, at the destination airport, once customs have OK'd them for clearance to landside. Not to say it can't happen of course, or a new tag placed on and the bag being sent to Mexico or something like that where removal from the airport may be a little easier.

I've seen it reported that currently BA are mishandling about 70,000 bags a month.

You suspect a member of staff casually walked out of the airport after their shift with your case? 🤯

Having a gold card, or even a GGL, will not get lost baggage expedited any quicker. There�s a process to follow, and unless something was put into or found in the luggage that shouldn�t have been there it will find its way to you.

Meanwhile buy what you need and check insurance cover. It�s hardly an unusual circumstance.