AN airport baggage breakdown has left a furious mother of three without a vital suitcase for 13 days.

Deborah Gorman, who flew from South Africa to visit her family in Accrington, is desperate for British Airways to reunite her with the luggage which missed her connecting shuttle flight from Heathrow to Manchester.

The bag contains not only all her clothes, but also medication and a nebuliser for her eight-month-old daughter, Samantha, who has chest problems and asthma.

Mrs Gorman said: "I have told them it's a special case because of the medication, but it's still not come through. I can't buy it here and I would have to take her to the hospital if she had an attack. What's infuriating is that I have been treated with indifference." A British Airways spokesman at Heathrow said almost 5,000 bags had missed connecting planes due to mechanical failure of a transfer baggage sort system the weekend Mrs Gorman flew in.

The general manager for bag services had now personally taken up the search to track down Mrs Gorman's case, he added.

Mrs Gorman, Robyn, six, Christopher, two, and baby Samantha, are staying with her parents, Ron and Pauline Best, in Royds Avenue. She has been running up the phone bill two or three times a day to try to get the suitcase back.

Mrs Gorman said she was told there was a backlog of thousands and she would have to wait like everybody else.

"I will never fly with British Airways again. It will probably arrive when I have gone back."

When the family landed at Manchester a week last Saturday, only one of their three bags appeared on the conveyor belt. A second bag was brought to Accrington the following day by courier.

British Airways said that because of security, bags were not allowed to go on a plane the passenger was not on and all "short-shipped" bags had to be re-tagged by hand, X-rayed and tagged again.

Extra staff had been brought in to clear the backlog and arrangements made to take some bags by road, avoiding the need to X-ray them.

The spokesman added: "We regret this has happened and can only apologise unreservedly to passengers who have not had their bags delivered."

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