Last updated: 27 September 2023
EasyJet Delayed Baggage: A Step-by-Step Recovery Guide
You’ve come off a flight, but your baggage hasn’t. Sucks eh? It might not be so bad if you’ve just finished your trip or holiday. You can probably survive without your underpants for a few days while the delayed luggage gets found and returned. But if you’re just about to start your holiday then it can be a major pain in the backside. Particularly if your going on a tour and travelling from day-to-day. Getting the luggage to you is going to be a logistic issue.
This article is slightly off topic for us; our primary focus is energy. But we’ve experienced this recently and found it difficult to find simple, quick and practical answers. So, we thought we’d put together our own step-by-step delayed baggage recovery guide to help out. We hope you find it useful.
Why does Easyjet baggage get delayed or lost?
Airline luggage gets lost of delayed for many reasons. These include human error, insufficient time to transfer bags between connecting flights and, would you believe it, because the total weight of baggage booked onto the plane is too heavy for the plane it is booked onto. So it never gets onboard in the first place. Inter-connecting flights are a particular point where luggage handling errors can occur.
In our case it was because there was just too much heavy luggage for the plane to handle. We were returning from a ski trip during a busy weekend and the plane was full. Many passengers had checked in multiple, over-sized bags containing heavy ski and snowboard equipment. There are restrictions on how much weight a plane can safely carry for fairly obvious, and also some not-so-obvious, reasons. This is why there are limits on the amount of checked and cabin baggage passengers can take onboard an airplane. Once the plane hits that limit, no other bags are going on. They are staying at the airport, while you fly off.
In our case, flying from Geneva to Luton, on an Airbus A320 with 186 seats, we learnt that 39 items on luggage were left behind at Geneva. That’s 1 Easyjet lost or delayed bag for each 5 passengers onboard. Not great.
As your stand there, staring at the lonely baggage carousel after all but a few passengers have left, you realise that your bags have gone AWOL. We’ve been there and, if you’re reading this article, you are probably in that position right now. What to do next?
We’ve created a 6 point step-by-step guide to help you get your EasyJet lost luggage back as efficiently as possible.
Getting your Easyjet delayed luggage back
Step 1 – First steps – do these 5 checks
You’ll need to create a missing luggage report as soon as possible. Before doing that here’s a few checks you can make to ensure your luggage really is lost or delayed.
- Visit the EasyJet Baggage Services Desk at the airport; this should be located in the Baggage Reclaim area.
- Check with the desk to determine if multiple bags on your flight are missing; if so, it might be due to baggage overloading, and the bags could still be at the departure airport.
- Ask the desk to verify whether all bags taken off the plane made it to the luggage conveyor belt. It’s not impossible that some bags could have been left on the tarmac. Apparently, it does happen.
- Look around the arrivals hall, including other baggage conveyor belts, in case your bag was misplaced. This could happen because your luggage was delivered to the wrong belt by the ground crew. Alternatively, another fellow passenger might have picked up the bag by mistake and then, unkindly, dumped it elsewhere rather than bringing it back.
- Finally, if there are multiple flights arriving from the same destination, consider waiting for the next flight to see if your bag was loaded onto a later flight. However, during busy periods, as we experienced, multiple successive flights may have baggage delays due to overloading, resulting in a growing backlog of delayed Easyjet luggage building up at the departure airport.
If none of that works, call it a day and move to Step 2.
Step 2 – Create an EasyJet Delayed Baggage Report
- Do this as soon as you can. If not at the airport then as soon as you get home.
- Use the EasyJet Dedicated Baggage Portal
- You need to make sure you do this within 24 hours of your flight arriving.
- Click on “Create a Report” icon and complete the form
- You will need your personal details (name, address and contact information), your flight details and ideally your checked baggage tags. If you don’t have your baggage tags, don’t worry. Baggage tags will help find your delayed EasyJet luggage, but you can create a report without them. In this case, you’ll need to describe your lost bags (type / colour / brand etc), but this is easy to complete by clicking on pre-set images.
- Once submitted, EasyJet and their team will use the WorldTracer system to locate your delayed baggage.
- You’ll receive a reference number via email and SMS. Keep a record of this as you will need it for checking updates on your luggage. Better still download a copy of your report from the confirmation page.
Step 3 – Updating your Delayed Baggage Report
Once your report is in the system you can make changes and add information through the “MANAGE MY EXISTING REPORT” link on the EasyJet portal.
Why update your report?
- Getting your report into the system quickly means that the search for your lost or delayed baggage can begin. But, after a long flight, you may not have the will or the energy to list all the details. Like how many pairs of underpants were in your luggage. You can add this information later.
- Amendments, such as listing items inside the delayed baggage, assists handlers in confirming they’ve found the correct bags. Let’s face it; many travel bags look alike these days.
- To update your Delayed Baggage Report, you only need your report reference number and surname for access.
Step 4 – Getting updates about your Delayed EasyJet Baggage
You have three options for receiving updates about your lost or delayed EasyJet baggage, each offering different levels of information. Let’s break down the process and examine the pros and cons of each.
There are 3 players in the lost and delayed baggage handling process.
- The airline – in this case EasyJet
- The logistics services company that operates on behalf of EasyJet to help with baggage tracing – in this case Menzies Aviation and,
- WorldTracer, the global baggage tracking system that exchanges information with a 1,000+ airports across 200 counties and territories, covering 90% of international destinations.
WorldTracer is the information hub sitting behind everything, and is used by both EasyJet and Menzies Aviation to update the status of your lost or delayed luggage. For those interested, more information on Menzies Aviation and WorldTracer is provided at the bottom of this article.
We will briefly describe what each can do for you.
1. EasyJet Baggage Portal
- This is the least informative option, acting as a passive window to the WorldTracer system.
- It provides a summary of WorldTracer inputs. However, once your bags have been located, even though you won’t have received them, it considers your case closed and shuts down access to the portal.
- EasyJet should send email and text updates, but this doesn’t always happen reliably. So, once access to the Baggage portal is closed, you are in the dark.
2. WorldTracer Portal
- This takes you to the source of the information.
- To access the public facing WorldTracer portal it’s best to go through Google search. The portal url varies slightly depending upon geographic region and also gets tweaked from time to time. Google picks up these updates and (almost) invariably puts the link into the #1 position on natural search.
- Google the term “Baggage” or “Baggage Tracker” and click on the “worldtracer.aero” link. You should see this page.
- Enter your File Reference (from your EasyJet Delayed Baggage Report) and your Name (surname) for information on your baggage’s status.
- Note that interpreting the information can be tricky as it is primarily designed for airline industry insiders; it may not specify if the baggage is en-route to you or with an intermediary carrier for example.
3. Via Menzies Aviation
- This is the most informative route.
- Menzies Aviation manage of the status of your lost or delayed EasyJet baggage via the WorldTracer.com system.
- Having direct access to the system means that they have much deeper and more up to date information than is available via the public WorldTracer portal. They can tell whether your delayed Easyjet luggage has been found up to 24 hours before the public portal is updated, whether it has been flown back to the destination airport and even which flight it is scheduled to arrive on.
- However, you can only get this level of detailed information, if you give them a call.
Contact Information for Menzies Aviation
Phone: 0330 660 0813
Operating hours : 08.00 – 20.00 GMT
We found Menzies Aviation to be very responsive and thoroughly professional in the way they responded to our telephone queries.. For the most accurate and up to date information for tracking your delayed EasyJet baggage, this is the way to go.
Step 5 – Getting Your Delayed Baggage Delivery Prioritised
If you have something in your delayed luggage that is perishable and/or stuff that might get damaged if not returned quickly (like damp expensive ski gear at risk of molding), you can try to expedite its return. A word of warning. This is a time consuming and tedious process with limited prospects of success. If possible, consider skipping this step and proceeding to Step 6. If you decide to prioritize delivery, read on.
Important Note
This step applies only if your delayed EasyJet baggage has been located. If your bags haven’t yet been found, they can’t be bumped up in a queue for expedited delivery because, they won’t be in a queue to jump.
The Process
- First, contact your airline to get contact details for either the local airport service desk, or for the service company responsible for baggage desks at regional airports.
- For instance, Global Baggage Solutions handles baggage for 5 UK airports, plus an unexpected one, JFK.
- You then need to hit the phones. It will take time, patience, and potential phone call expenses. There’s no guarantee of success, and your calls might not even be answered.
- If you’re committed to this route, you can download a list of relevant EasyJet service desk contact numbers.
Important Reminder
Chances of success in prioritizing delivery are low, this process may involve costs and it will involve considerable effort. Good luck!
Step 6 – Getting you delayed baggage back
When completing your EasyJet delayed baggage report, you’re asked to specify whether, once found, you’d like to collect your luggage from the airport or to have it delivered.
Delivery is arranged by the airport and normally takes 1-2 days after arrival at the destination airport. Ours did. Yippe! Case closed.
According to EasyJet, more than 90% of their delayed bags are found within the first five days. But, what if you are in the unlucky 10% and your bags aren’t found. Read on.
What if Your Delayed Baggage Isn’t Found Within 5 Days?
- We were fortunate not to experience this situation.
- If your delayed luggage has not been found within 5 days of you reporting it on the EasyJet online portal, then tracking and management of your lost luggage passes from the specialist service company handling the case (in this case Menzies Aviation) back to EasyJet.
- EasyJet then refers it to their in-house Specialist Baggage Tracing team, who will continue the search from 6 days to 45 days after your arrival.
- If your bags still haven’t been found 45 days after your arrival, then they are likely considered lost. In such a case, you will need to make a claim either with EasyJet or your travel insurance provider, or possibly both.
Share Your Experience
- If you’ve been in a situation where your bags were found after 5 working days or were lost permanently, and have an interesting story to share, please do so in the comments section below.
- Alternatively, if your bags are still in recovery but the process seems like it’s going nowhere, and you need help, please let us know. We’ll aim to investigate further and will provide updates.
Easyjet delayed luggage process – Review with Pros and Cons
Based on our experience of recovering our EasyJet delayed baggage
The Good Bits
1. Quick and Easy Report Creation: Creating an EasyJet delayed baggage report is a doddle – straightforward and efficient.
2. Smooth Communication with Menzies Aviation: Communicating with Menzies Aviation by phone was hassle-free. They answered calls promptly and provided efficient, professional, and courteous service.
3. Fast Bag Location and Delivery: The bag was located quickly and delivered within 4 calendar days of being reported, putting us among the fortunate 90% who recovered their bags within 5 days.
The not so good bits
1. Communication Issues: Communication, through text and email (both of which were requested), was essentially non-existent other than confirming the creation of the delayed baggage report. This might have been a temporary glitch and not typical. But in our case, we had to do all the chasing to track progress.
2. Sudden Baggage Report Closure: EasyJet closed access to our Baggage Report as soon as the bag was marked as located. This was rather worrying as, due to the lack of communication referred to above, it appeared that they had lost not just our bag, but also our report Unneeded stress.
3. Difficulty in Prioritizing Delivery: Trying to get our delayed baggage prioritised for delivery ran into problems very, very quickly. Calls to EasyJet and the EasyJet baggage service counter came up against recorded messages making it very difficult to make any progress. We quickly reached the conclusion that this was going to be a non-starter.
EasyJet Baggage Tracking
About WorldTracer?
WorldTracer is a service for the tracking of lost or delayed baggage. You can think of it as a global GPS for airline luggage. It is used by all airlines that are members of IATA. Most of the low-cost carriers that are based in Europe, including EasyJet, use WorldTracer.
The WorldTracer service is provided by SITA. The service operates globally and exchanges information with over 1,000 airports across 200 counties and territories, covering 90% of international destinations. It tracks and follows baggage for up to 100 days. The WorldTracer internet interface allows regular passengers to track their bags by entering a transaction number or delayed baggage reference report number (as described in Step 4 above).
About Menzies Aviation?
Menzies Aviation is a logistics services company providing services to the global aviation industry. In the context of EasyJet delayed baggage, they provide front office services to help with baggage tracing for the first 5 days. That’s when 90% of the delayed baggage turns up. After that it reverts back to the airline to mop up the rest.
Menzies Aviation are a SITA/IATA member. This gives them access to deeper and more up-to-date information held in the WorldTracer system than available through the traveller portal. Want to know if your luggage has been found, flown back to its destination, or even which flight it’s scheduled to arrive on? A quick call to Menzies Aviation can provide answers. We found them to be very responsive and professional.
So that’s a wrap for now. Further articles on ways to prevent your luggage getting lost or delayed coming soon.
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