Delta Air Forced to Fill a Widebody Jet With 1,000 Lost Bags From Heathrow Airport to Repatriate Them Back to the U.S.

Delta Air Lines was forced to fly one of the A330 widebody jets from London's Heathrow Airport to Detroit without any passengers on board but filled to the brim with 1,000 lost bags that had been delayed in England because of technical problems.

The airline confirmed on Wednesday that it made use of an aircraft that already happened to be in London but was going to fly back to the US without passengers.

There have been a number of problems with the baggage automated handling system at the airport. The majority of the technical issues have been isolated to Terminals 2 and 3. Delta is based out of Terminal 3.

Several weeks ago, photos of a carpet of luggage outside Terminal 2 went viral after the airport ran out of space to store bags. The front of Terminal 3 has been home to delayed luggage on a number of occasions.

Staffing shortages and capacity constraints within the cargo holds have compounded the problems.

Delta was able to return a large amount of luggage in one go.

ADelta teams worked a creative solution to move delayed checked bags from London-Heathrow on July 11 after a regularly scheduled flight had to be canceled

The bags were kept in the cargo hold of the aircraft and not in the passenger cabin like some airlines did during the Pandemic.

This isn't the first time a major airline has had to charter an aircraft. Qantas has suffered baggage problems after outsourcing baggage handling to outside ground handling companies.

Qantas used a Boeing 787-9 to move delayed baggage from Australia to Australia.

As an international flight attendant, Maszczynski worked at the most prominent airline in the Middle East and has been flying for a well-known European airline. He is an expert in passenger experience and human-centered stories. Some of the biggest names in journalism rely on Matt's industry insights, analysis and news coverage often.