Mountain of luggage left as passengers fly out

LONDON, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Thousands of passengers leaving British airports today were doing so without their luggage, which has been held up by security measures brought in after last week's alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners.

British Airways said it was trying to clear a backlog of 5,000 bags at Heathrow and other airlines were experiencing similar problems.

''We've got articulated lorries going into cities in the UK and Europe and we are using Fed Ex to send bags to Europe and the US,'' a spokeswoman for the airline said.

''We currently have around 5,000 bags waiting to be despatched to their owners.'' The airline has been forced to cancel 1,100 flights as a result of the heightened security checks and has said it may seek compensation from airport operator BAA.

The BA spokeswoman said there were two main reasons why the bags had not got on the planes with their owners.

''When the first set of hand baggage restrictions came in and everyone had to put a lot of things into the hold that they wouldn't have done before, it put a lot of pressure on the BAA baggage system which at times ground to a halt completely.'' She added people were also putting smaller items into the baggage system which were getting caught up in the machinery and blocking it. The bags would normally be taken onboard aircraft as hand luggage.

REUTERS DKA VC2330