'My son's dream wedding in Ibiza might not go ahead after luggage blunder'
A family says they fear they will have to cancel their dream wedding in Ibiza after their luggage never arrived.
Claire Milroy, 29, and her husband-to-be Wesley Hampson, 30, splashed thousands to have the Spanish wedding of their dreams surrounded by 30 of their family and friends.
They all flew from Edinburgh Airport on July 16, but their luggage never left the UK. Guests have arrived with no change of clothes and the groom's younger brother is missing his diabetes medication.
The father of the groom Mark Hampson, 57, has tried to resolve the situation.
They were expecting their luggage to be flown out by Tuesday night. They could be forced to fork out an additional £1,000 to try and push the wedding back to later in the week.
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Speaking to EdinburghLive, Mark said: "The plane was delayed by around 30 minutes when we left Edinburgh but that seems normal these days so it didn't bother us much.
"We had checked in all of our hold luggage and eventually boarded the flight to Ibiza for my son's wedding, there were seven of us on the group booking and a further 24 travelling on their own bookings.
"When we arrived at the baggage hall in Ibiza we waited for a bit but no luggage was coming out, after a while we went to the information desk as there was nobody around from Ryanair to help out and their desk was closed.
"There were around 120 people queuing at the information desk in Ibiza Airport and when we eventually managed to speak to someone they told us that our bags had been lost and gave us a form to fill out and a reference number.
"We filled in the forms and by the time we got to the hotel, we were two hours late and arrived with no belongings.
"We had no changes of clothes or toiletries and it was 10pm by the time we arrived so there were not really any shops open to buy any new clothes.
"There were around 30 of us raiding Ibiza Old Town for anything we could get our hands on, we are all in shorts and T-shirts from tourist shops."
After safely making it to the hotel, the guests were unable to get changed and relax as the future of the wedding was unknown.
The dad continued: "We had to cancel a boat trip my son had booked for everyone on the first full day and we had a special meal planned for the evening but it was too late when we arrived and no one felt like celebrating.
"My son Josh is a type one diabetic and some of his kit was in his suitcase for monitoring his insulin levels and in case of an emergency.
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"We obviously carry supplies with us but only for four days so we were worried we'd have to contact a doctor out there because we were first told we might not get our luggage back till the Friday.
"Wes and Claire were both really stressed so I told them to try to stay calm and I took it upon myself to deal with it.
"I contacted Ryanair on Monday morning after another passenger who was on our flight and also staying in our hotel said that they had an air tag in their luggage and could see it was still at Edinburgh Airport.
"I phoned Edinburgh Airport who told us they couldn't help us, then I phoned Swissport at Edinburgh Airport five times and still no one ever got back to me.
"Ryanair hasn't been in touch at all which I'm absolutely flabbergasted by - just forty minutes ago a woman from Ibiza Airport told us today - two days after we landed that our bags were on a flight from Stansted and were supposed to get in at 7pm tonight.
"It would be chaos if 30 of us went to the airport to get the bags as there will be around 40 suitcases so we have booked the same big bus we took to the hotel and a couple of us will go with everyone's boarding passes and hopefully we will be able to bring all the luggage to the hotel," he said.
Until the luggage has been tracked down and returned to the wedding party the question of whether or not the stressed couple will get their big day is uncertain.
Mark explained: "If we delay the wedding it will cost £1,000 to push it to later in the week, but if we have to cancel it will cost around £20,000.
"We are leaving it until 9pm tonight to decide whether we are going ahead with the wedding tomorrow, delaying the wedding or cancelling it.
"Claire is absolutely distraught and has been in tears, all she saw was her dream wedding falling apart right in front of her.
"We have all been planning it for over a year, my son Wes has been getting really angry but is trying to stay calm and make sure Claire is okay.
"She was so upset about the fact all her family and friends had travelled all this way for this to happen. They are both just worried the £20,000 wedding won't go ahead.
"At this stage, we just don't know what will happen - we are just hanging on and hoping for the best."
Ryanair and Swissport blamed "a baggage belt failure" for the missing luggage. But Edinburgh Airport officials say a lack of ground handling staff and equipment was the cause.
A spokesperson for Edinburgh Airport said: "There were no baggage belt failures at Edinburgh Airport on that day and we don't recognise any claims which suggest there were."
They added: "Our own investigation shows the handling agent responsible for that flight was short in staff numbers and had a lack of trailer equipment to store and transport baggage, impacting the delivery of bags to the aircraft.
"This is an issue within the agent's operation, not the system."
A spokesperson for Swissport said: “We are sorry for the delay experienced by these passengers. This was due to a technical issue outside of Swissport’s control, but we can confirm the bags are now on their way to be reunited with the passengers.”
A spokesperson for Ryanair said: “Due to a baggage belt failure at Edinburgh Airport some passengers’ luggage was not loaded onto this flight from Edinburgh to Ibiza (16 July).
"Affected passengers were notified and advised that their luggage would be sent on the next flight to Ibiza, which is due to arrive today (18 July).
They added: "We sincerely apologise to affected passengers for any inconvenience caused as a result of this baggage belt failure at Edinburgh Airport, which was entirely beyond Ryanair’s control.”
The Mirror contacted Ryanair, Swissport and Edinburgh Airport for a statement.
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