British Airways offers a door-to-door luggage delivery service that is only marginally more expensive that the baggage charges it has introduced today.

The airline uses baggage courier, First Luggage, to offer the service via the “Manage my booking” section of the BA website. It will collect bags from any address in the UK and deliver them to a specified address abroad.

The fees for customers going through BA.com are five per cent lower than the charges on First Luggage’s own website, which means it costs £65.55 to transport a case within Europe and £122.55 to the US.

This compares to the new charges, introduced from today, which require BA passengers who want to take more than one piece of hold luggage to pay £30 per flight on domestic routes, £60 on short-haul routes and £120 on long-haul routes (prices drop by 30 per cent for advance online bookings).

First Luggage claims that the benefit to its customers include: “no lugging heavy bags, reduced check in times, no anxious wait at the carousel on arrival…” However, for passengers who want to travel with two cases, they’ll still need to check one in with BA, or face a further £65.55 charge for the second case to travel with First Luggage.

The greater benefit will be seen after September 30, when BA trims its suitcase weight limit from 32kg to 23kg, meanwhile First Luggage will accept cases weighing up to 30kg.

First Luggage is one of a number offering door-to-door luggage delivery services, whose prices now compare favourably with BA’s charges for a second bag. It has seen enquiries triple following a move by BA to introduce fees of up to £240 for hold luggage.

The charges have launched today, with relatively little notice, and in recognition of this, BA has told its check-in staff to give “sympathetic treatment” to passengers unaware of the new rules. The airline said today there had been a lot of “uncertainty” over the new policy, which it insisted would only affect a small percentage of passengers. BA said it had always made it clear there was a “grace period” between now and September 30.

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