Air New Zealand says no damage to lost bags at Auckland Airport

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There’s a little bit of good news for passengers who are still missing their luggage at Auckland Airport – Air New Zealand says the bags weren’t damaged in the floods which hit on Friday evening.

The severe weather saw passengers wading through water and the closure of the international airport for 37 hours.

The terminal has been the scene of ‘bagmageddon’ over the last few weeks. Like other airports around the world, Auckland Airport has experienced higher numbers of mishandled bags than usual since Covid-related travel restrictions eased.

Mishandled baggage is the industry term for missing, damaged or delayed luggage and the most common cause is a missed transfer; when the passenger makes their connecting flight but their bag does not.

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Photos and video from Auckland Airport have shown large piles of luggage , but Air NZ Chief Operating Officer Alex Marren said the good news is that they weren’t affected by the floods.

“We’re grateful that there was no major flood impact to our mishandled baggage area at Auckland Airport,” Marren told Stuff Travel.

“The closure of the airport and cancellation of inbound flights meant there wasn’t an increase in customer mishandled baggage, and while baggage delivery was halted for a short period, deliveries are now back up and running. For any customers who had bags on cancelled flights on Friday evening we’ve contacted them, and they are either picking their bags up or they are being delivered to them.”

Baggage lined up at Auckland Airport just after Christmas.

Megan Eaves/Supplied

Baggage lined up at Auckland Airport just after Christmas.

One element of the baggage system which has been affected is the automated bag drops in the main international terminal, and Marren said teams “are working around the clock to undertake repairs”.

Board of Air Lines Representatives of NZ executive director Cath O’Brien said there were ongoing complications with Auckland Airport’s baggage system.

There were two parts to the system, she explained – the first was where customers check in and drop their bags to have them weighed, before they roll off onto the back conveyor belt. That conveyor belt led to the larger baggage system, which took bags to the planes.

O’Brien said the bag drop part was still broken, and the only way to move bags to the larger baggage system was by hand.

The larger baggage system had been repaired and was working, but was “a bit intermittent”.

“We need a lot of manual labour at the airport at the moment – there’s a lot of handling you wouldn’t normally do,” she said.

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