British Airways' chief executive Willie Walsh believes the one-bag restriction on hand luggage is to be lifted within weeks.

In a speech yesterday morning to BritishAmerican Business Inc, an organisation that encourages trade across the Atlantic, Walsh said that the current limits on baggage are ineffective. “To be effective, security has to be credible. The truth is that the UK’s current one-bag rule is not credible. If it were felt to be a worthwhile security measure, it would be in force here in the US – and in the rest of Europe. It is not.”

“We recognise how irritating it is for people flying from the US, having carried on two items of security-cleared luggage at their home airport, to be told at Heathrow that they must check one item into the hold if they want to catch a connecting flight.”

Walsh says the airline has been lobbying the Department for Transport, which has imposed the security measures on airlines and airports, on the issue. “We have also been lobbying Heathrow’s owners, BAA, to ensure that their screening systems can cope with an increase in carry-on bags,” he said.

“It is not in my power to give you a date, but I am hopeful that our efforts to have this needless restriction lifted will meet with success in the coming weeks,” he added.

In the same speech, he confirmed that BA was looking at services from Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Brussels and Milan to New York and other US cities in “either in a two-class configuration, or perhaps as exclusively business class services”. This is the first time that the BA boss has mentioned any specifics about its proposed new services to take advantage of the Open Skies agreement that comes into effect next March.

He added: “This would be a radical departure for British Airways: the first time in our 88-year history that we have operated long-haul flights that neither take off nor land in the UK.”

Earlier this week, the airline announced it planned to move its Houston and Dallas services from Gatwick to Heathrow from next March.