Passengers' luggage off-board to accommodate England cricketers' luggage

The English cricket team is currently playing the Trans Tasman tri-series against England and Australia. England lost both the games that they’ve played in the series so far. New Zealand and England will face off each other tomorrow in the 4th game of the series in Wellington. Both these teams haven’t opened their account so far in the tournament and will be hoping to pull off a victory tomorrow.

The England team traveled to New Zealand from Australia yesterday to play this game. However, the team is now surrounded by a major controversy ahead of the match. The English cricketers’ luggage and kit bags were to be shipped from Sydney to Wellington. In order to do this, the airlines decided to dish out the luggage of other passengers on board. In fact, the England cricketers were not even traveling on that flight.

Disgraceful to leave out the luggage

The majority of the about 100 passengers onboard yesterday’s flight found that their luggage had been left in Sydney, unlike the luggage of the English cricket players – who were not on the flight. This led to some severe disappointment and anguish among them and is highly unprofessional from the airlines’ side to do this.

Viraj Thomson was flying with his elderly mother on the flight. The flight had already been delayed due to fog at Wellington Airport over the weekend. He told Checkpoint with John Campbell that they weren’t happy when they got to the baggage carousel.

“There was just bag after bag after bag with the ECT marks on them. And that was basically it and it was all on for England. The penny was dropping there for most of the passengers,” he said. “It was very odd because the Qantas staff in the baggage assistance area in Wellington seemed completely shocked that no one’s luggage had turned up,” Mr. Thomson added.

“It was a disgraceful display. And the issue seems to be that … left hand being Sydney didn’t tell right hand being Wellington what was going on. Non-team bags were basically forfeit for what appears to be the greater good of a foreign sporting body,” he concluded. Mr. Thomson said he still hadn’t received his bags today. Qantas has said they would be delivered tomorrow.