Travel: Socks overhead

Simon Calder
Friday 01 July 1994 23:02 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

TEN minutes after he landed at Gatwick, Malcolm Senior's socks went flying over his head. While Mr Senior, from Twickenham, was at ground level, they were at 30,000ft, heading for Manchester, along with the rest of his luggage.

Mr Senior's sorry saga began at Geneva airport last Saturday morning, when the British Airways flight to Gatwick was delayed by two and a half hours. This gave his luggage plenty of time to find its way on to the wrong flight. But since BA has frequent flights from Manchester to Heathrow, a few miles from Mr Senior's home, he assumed that once the bag was traced it would be a simple matter to fly it south and take it round to his house.

However, it turns out that lost baggage must always be sent to the original destination, even if this is inconvenient for everybody. 'We'll put it on the first flight out to Gatwick in the morning,' the airline told Mr Senior.

But next day his luggage failed to board the first flight, and instead took off at about midday. And after it arrived in Gatwick, it spent 10 more hours circulating the M25 (according to the BA lost-luggage people) before it was reunited with its owner.

'My socks could have walked home more quickly,' complained Mr Senior.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in