Now a second Fringe comic hit by airline losing their luggage

Smack the Pony star Fiona Allen has become the second comic to arrive in Edinburgh for the Fringe without her luggage.

The comic's suitcase went missing on a flight from London to Heathrow. 

It follows the news that Australian comedian Michelle Brasier was left ​stranded after airline KLM lost all of her musical equipment.

'British Airways? Don't bother,' said Allen, whose show On The Run is on at Pleasance Courtyard. 'A quick one hour flight to Edinburgh and somehow I'm left with the clothes I'm stood up in. Thanks Heathrow. Ten out of ten.'

As Chortle reported earlier today, Braiser –  who co-started with sketch group Aunty Donna on their  Netflix  series – flew from Amsterdam to Edinburgh on Saturday with her partner and on-stage musician Tim Lancaster and backing musician Jordan White

However their luggage – including a guitar, a trombone, all of their clothes and costumes, guitar pedals, full electronic drumkit, computer and mixer – have gone missing.

What’s more baffling is that there are Apple AirTags inside the bags, and Michelle and her crew can see that they have been sitting at Edinburgh airport for three days.

When the team landed, there were six missing bags containing thousands of pounds worth of kit still left in Amsterdam. Soon after, the AirTags told them that the luggage had landed in Edinburgh - but staff at the airport have been unable to help her locate anything.

Three days later, the AirTag tracking system informed Michelle that three of those bags had been moved into arrivals at Edinburgh airport and were sitting in baggage reclaim. The others appear to be in a part of Edinburgh airport the public cannot access.

Michelle said: ‘A lovely man who worked at the airport tried to help us but he didn’t have the authority to go and get our bags for us. Our AirTags were showing the bags were 50 metres from us.

‘We begged, "please just let us go grab them, they’re right there! We just wanna do our little show!" But he wasn’t allowed to, and wasn’t able to go and get anyone with more authority to help us"

‘I absolutely understand that airport staff are overworked and stressed but our AirTags show our bags and instruments have been sitting there for three days now. It’s clear the staff on the ground at Edinburgh airport need more support.

‘We have emailed, called, Facebook messaged, Instagram-ed - I even dueted the airline on TikTok to try to get our instruments before the show starts tomorrow! KLM keep telling us they will be delivered to us when they are found - but we’ve found them and they have been at the airport for three days.

‘This is what happens when you remove real people and we can only communicate with chat bots."

Chortle has approached KLM, which has not rand Swissport, the company that handles baggage for the airline, which said: 'We are sincerely sorry to hear about these passengers' experience and recognise how frustrating it is. We are in direct contact with Michelle and her team and are working hard to reunite them with their luggage.'

The situation may be confused as the team flew with Etihad from Australia and  it was only the last leg of the trip that was with KLM.

Michelle says she has been able to find some alternative instruments in time her opening night of her show, Refor , at the Gilded Balloon tomorrow.

She added: ‘People have been so generous. Local musos have come out of the woodwork offering us help where they can. The spirit of the fringe is so lovely. We feel really supported and just hope we don’t open the show tomorrow in our new Primark SpongeBob undies we just bought jetlagged and confused on our way home from the airport"

Meanwhile, fellow Australian comedian Jane Watt has told of being reduced to tears when UK border guards told her she needed a visa to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The Fringe is on the Home Office's list of permit-free festivals, which means performers from many nations – including Australia – need no special visa. However, Border Force officers who greeted her at Heathrow after a 15-hour flight from her Malaysian layover  appeared unaware of the exemption and told her the ‘letter of welcome’ issued by the Fringe was not sufficient.

After some discussion, an officer granted her a one-month stay, meaning she would have to leave the UK on August 27, the very day of her last show. Although she could then re-enter on a visitors’ permit the very next day.

‘At this point this seemed like the best possible outcome given the circumstances,’ she says.

But she raged: ‘The blatant refusal to try and understand, or back down or even do the slightest due diligence to at least google the bloody thing was a nasty indictment on those border officials that morning. A simple decision from someone who was having a bad morning could’ve seen me packing back home. A "safe border" shouldn’t feel like that. That wasn’t a safe border,  that was bullying.’

Published: 1 Aug 2023