The chaos and lost luggage of the Madrid-London route of Iberia

MadridUpdated:07/31/2019 18: 02h

July 23 Iberia passengers experienced a chaotic situation. Already with the belts fastened, the IB 3176 flight to London was evicted for «technical brake problems», according to one of those affected. The company assigned them the next flight, which took off to the British capital two and a half hours later.

However, travelers could not board, because at the check-in counter only one person attended and, although soon after another one came, there was no time to place the passengers on the plane, as P. R., a passenger who was traveling with her daughter.

The odyssey did not end there. Iberia changed the boarding gate three times and, an hour and a half later, the passengers were still on the ground. Finally, they were assigned a waiting list flight. "I had an event that same day at the Freud Museum in north London," says P. R. He landed just twenty minutes before the event began.

But his return from London to Madrid was no better. After a delay of about half an hour and where, again, only one person was in charge of the "check-in", all the bags of flight IB 3717 did not return to Madrid. They remained four days unaccounted for, without the company attending to the passengers' claims, P. R. insists. When they arrived at the Barajas airport "they did not give the claims sheet in conditions", because they were given a 2018 document, after waiting 40 minutes in front of the tapes.

That role, therefore, had nothing to do with it. Baggage Irregularity Part (PIR), document that includes a reference number, essential to make a claim once the luggage is lost. "All this insistently asking since they initially refused," adds the passenger who lived, along with many others, these incidents.

Two facing versions

Four days later, Iberia has explained what happened. The one-way flight to London suffered a "breakdown", so they had to relocate passengers on different flights; However, do not clarify the "lack of staff" nor the continuous changes of the boarding gate denounced by P. R.

According to the company, on the day of the return flight, which operated Iberia Express - a “low cost” subsidiary of the Spanish airline—, a storm hit Gatwick Airport (London), which caused all the luggage to remain on the ground. «The systems stopped working, it was a airport problem, not from the company, ”explain airline sources.

However, P. R. insists that «There was no such storm». After five days without news of Iberia (which he claims did not answer his emails) or the whereabouts of his two suitcases, he received a message on Wednesday afternoon confirming the imminent delivery of one of them, scheduled for Thursday, August 1. The other continues lost.

In addition, Iberia claimed on Wednesday morning that all bags had taken off from Gatwick airport and were being returned to their owners. «Those in Madrid have all been distributed, the rest are being sent », they affirm from the airline.

Meanwhile, the affected one, who lives in the Madrid municipality of Las Rozas, crosses out what happened «Organizational and management chaos tremendous". Waiting for one of the suitcases to arrive and without knowing the destination of the second, P. R. argues that he will go to the airport in the next few days in search of an explanation, which he does not have today.