A major airport blunder has left hundreds of Aberdeen passengers without their luggage.

Around 8,000 bags were lost at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport in a single day after a computer fault.

Almost a week later passengers still haven't been re-united with their bags.

Extra staff have been drafted in by KLM - the main airline flying in and out of the Dutch airport - in a bid to solve the problem as quickly as possible.

Three KLM flights from Aberdeen to Amsterdam, carrying more than 200 passengers, were affected.

Thousands more worldwide have been caught up in the chaos, caused by a fault in the airport's new computerised baggage handling system.

Newmachar offshore worker Mike Barclay was one of those affected.

The ROV pilot-technician travelled from Aberdeen to Schipol.

He then discovered his kit bag, containing work clothes and toiletries, was missing.

He was told there was no way of knowing when he would be re-united with his luggage.

Mr Barclay, who works for Coflexip Stena Offshore, said: "I couldn't believe it when I heard how many people had lost their bags.

"I wouldn't have been as bothered if I'd been on my way home but it's a pain to be without all my work clothes.

"It must be even worse for families on their holidays though."

A KLM spokeswoman said the airline was doing all it could to rectify the situation.

It is thought missing luggage has been sent to airports around the world.

She said: "Schipol Airport installed a new baggage handling system which then broke down because of a computer error.

"There are a huge amount of passengers affected and we are doing everything we can to re-unite passengers with their luggage.

"We have doubled the amount of customer relations staff to try and deal with the passengers as quickly as possible.

"This chaos is not the airline's making but we recognise it is a huge problem and are doing all we can."

She advised passengers to keep a hold of the baggage locator number they were allocated at Schipol.

Travellers can carry out an on-line search on the airline's website to check whether their luggage has been located on www.klm.com.

This is North Scotland

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2002