Everything was going perfectly. The M25 ran smoothly. No accidents blocked the A24 on my run up from north of Worthing on the South Coast to the dreaded Heathrow.

The signs to British Airways’ swanky new terminal 5 worked well. I arrived at the “Fast Bag Drop” without a care in the world (you use Fast Bag Drop if you’ve already checked in online). I was home free.

Wrong.

I had discounted British Airways unique ability to turn triumph into disaster. I was too early. I kid you not.

“Yes we could check your bags in now, but we can’t guarantee they won’t go astray,” said a less than charming operative at the BA desk, almost daring me to prove him right. Apparently, if the baggage arrives more than 3 hours before the flight is scheduled to leave, there is no provision in the bowels of Terminal 5. Bags deposited early fall into limbo, never to return.

So I had to cool my heels for 40 minutes.

It is hard to believe that British Airways can’t design a system with a little bit of flexibility. Given that travelling around the M25, you can often arrive about a 3 hours after you expected, this must be a situation BA encounters all the time given that we are forced to make bigger and bigger provisions for delays which might otherwise ruin our holidays.

There are some circumstances though when being early is OK. If you’ve paid through the nose for a Club World or First Class ticket, limbo is shut down for the time being if you’re early.

For the record, my bags did meet me in Phoenix, Arizona.

But BA found another way to make the journey just a bit more difficult. A previous Jumbo bound for San Francisco was boarded meticulously, carefully, section by section, to avoid that pointless scrum which raises the blood pressure. But when it came to the Phoenix flight, the scrum down was induced with a blanket call to board. 

 Neil Winton – June 10, 2008