British Airways chief's amazing claim: Some people actually LOVED our faulty Terminal 5

Under pressure: BA chief executive Willie Walsh claims passengers have written to him and praised the disastrous Terminal 5

He made the boast as he issued yet another apology for the chaos which has engulfed the £4 billion building.

He claimed people had "loved" the terminal and added: "I still believe in a year's time I'll tell you what a success T5 was."

He told Sky News: "We've had about 200,000 people go through T5. I know the press will portray this as Heathrow chaos. But for many of those people it will have been a pleasant experience and I remain very confident that Terminal 5 will deliver."

The BA chief, who has refused to quit over the fiasco which saw tens of thousands of passengers suffer from delays and cancellations, was caught up in a new row over how many bags were involved in the luggage backlog.

Walsh's amazing claims come after it was revealed that almost 30,000 bags have been lost in the chaos at Heathrow's Terminal 5, it has emerged.

It had been thought that 15,000 suitcases were stuck in storage, following problems with the baggage handling system.

But yesterday, Jim Fitzpatrick, the Aviation Minister, revealed that there was a backlog of 28,000, which would take a week to return to their owners.

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It had been thought that 15,000 suitcases were stuck in storage, following problems with the baggage handling system.

Walsh today claimed that the total of missing bags came to only 19,000 — which is still far more than BA had previously admitted.

The Department for Transport said BA and BAA used different counting methods.

The company said it hopes to start reuniting travellers with their bags today. Analysts said the baggage problems could cost BA £20 to £50 million.

Terminal 5 opened last Thursday and has been blighted by glitches ever since. Yesterday 54 British Airways flights were cancelled.

Another 50 have been cancelled for today and further cancellations are expected - affecting families heading off for a holiday when many schools break up on Friday.

At the current rate, more than 500 flights will have been cancelled by the end of the weekend, delaying more than 100,000 passengers.

Mr Fitzpatrick told MPs that passengers using the £4.3billion terminal had suffered "an unacceptably poor experience".

The baggage system had become "clogged" and had stopped functioning on several occasions.

"Delivery so far has fallen well short of expectation," he said.

"The travelling public is not interested in who is to blame...but rather in being properly treated when things go wrong."

An insider said the situation is unlikely to improve before the end of the week.