How long is too long to wait at baggage reclaim?

[CheddarGorgeous]

Short, internal flight (1 hour) to Heathrow.

Small plane.

Most passengers travelling with hand luggage only.

Arrive at a non peak time (Sunday evening).

How long should you have to wait at baggage reclaim before you get seriously pissed off?

Heathrow, expect to be waiting about an hour. I HATE that airport.

At Gatwick I waited for 45 mins before I asked what was going on at the baggage desk.

Were those small, internal flights?

About 5 mins before your bag actually appears...

I always found those short internal flights and often the ones where most people just had hand luggage as you state, always seemed to take the longest to get the checked baggage. I've waited nearly an hour before I think.

As far as I know the size of the flight has nothing to do with it the ground staff get allocated in order of arrivals.

If they have to unload seven Dreamliner before they get to your flight it takes a while.

I've waited an hour at Heathrow before.

Somewhere like City is quicker as less planes and no huge planes.

This ^

The size of aircraft and origin makes no odds. Ground staff will be allocated on a first come first served basis usually, unless they are doing a quick turnaround to try and avoid knock on delays.

Terminal 5 BA? or Terminal 2 Flybe?

Sorry forgot Aer Lingus as a possible terminal 2

We came in from the USA early morning at Heathrow and baggage reclaim was absolute carnage. We waited well over an hour.

I waited 2 hours at Stansted once, very unreasonable!

We waited 2 hours at Stansted, that's got to be the worst?!

Sounds like it is airport dependant. In the UK I've only ever flown into Leeds, Manchester or Liverpool with hold luggage and at Leeds, they usually get the bags in faster than the people coming in off the plane, they're all sat there on the carousel when you get through passport control, and I can't ever remember waiting very long at Manchester or Liverpool, a few minutes tops once you get to the carousel.

An hour or two is ridiculous. Was there some sort of breakdown?

T2 and the baggage handling people were taking the bags off the plane before the passengers were disembarking.

Jeez I don’t know. I can tell you the last time we flew we were home an hour after getting off the plane and that included a stop off at McDonald’s!

I waited two hours in Rome for the pram. Seriously frustrating

This is why London City is my favourite airport! I can get off the plane, get my case and be outside in under 10 minutes. Getting out of Heathrow can easily take 2 hours. So I wouldn't be surprised if you are waiting an hour for your luggage.

T2 and the baggage handling people were taking the bags off the plane before the passengers were disembarking.

So the hold up has been inside. It's not uncommon for bags to be quickly offloaded but there to be a backlog once the get them into the terminal. Terminal 2 is a huge mix of domestic and international flights; with a big range of airlines.

Heathrow are blaming the airline (who contract the baggage handlers), the airline is blaming Heathrow. I waited an hour which I thought was mad for a tiny plane at a quiet time of the week but it sounds like it's normal for Heathrow

Reminds me of when I toured around the then Soviet Union.
We'd land at an airport, where it seemed we were the only plane all afternoon, and it still took about 2 hrs for the bags to arrive...

I waited an hour which I thought was mad for a tiny plane at a quiet time of the week but it sounds like it's normal for Heathrow

Size of plane means nothing. And there is no quiet time at heathrow they have consistent inbound traffic from the minute they open until they close. 7 days a week.

We waited for two hours once at Bristol, did get a free EasyJet flight out of it though. What made is worse was that it was when England were playing in the World Cup and we all thought we’d be home in time to watch it. Loads of passengers were losing their rag as there were no updates at all