Waiting times for baggage at Gatwick Airport

[susuz.1]

I have just been checking this page of Flight Information for Gatwick Airport and interestingly, it included the arrival times of the aircraft, plus the baggage arrival times.  You have to study the page for a while to see the actual arrival of the aircraft then the time the baggage was delivered in the baggage hall.  I know that Monarch have recently sacked Swissport due to the unacceptable waiting times experienced recently when people had to wait 4-5 hours to collect their luggage.  I see when I looked that Monarch flights' baggage is now coming in on average 30 minutes from the plane landing so a vast improvement here.    Easy Jet and British Airways, however, are on average taking one and a half hours and sometimes more.

There are no facilities in the baggage hall - not much seating and the fact that so many people are trapped in the airport must surely be an additional security risk?  In the event of an emergency, it seems crazy having hundred of people who should have cleared the airport but are stuck in the baggage hall.  This must be worse for disabled and people travelling with young children and a nightmare for anyone with connecting flights or transport. Something should be done about the unrealistic waiting times as I think its totally unacceptable waiting such a long time just to collect your bags.

Here is a link to the page if you're travelling back from Dalaman to London Gatwick and want to see the current situation for yourself: http://www.gatwickairport.com/flights/

[KKOB]

So, what would YOU do about it? Bearing in mind of course that no extra cost must be incurred because that would eventually have to be passed on to the traveller ?

[Ray1951]

It's a well known fact that many airports give 'priority' to luggage coming off Thomson flights, even if the Thomson flight arrived after another flight operator.  This was and is certainly the case for flights arriving in Corfu.  The baggage handlers rush to unload the luggage from the Thomson flights.

[Scunner]

I can assure you there was no evidence of that in Tunisia a month or two ago