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

The Daily Mail report a dispute about the total numkber of suitcases they currently have "in storage". Eraly reports said 15,000 suitcases . 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.

Willie Walsh the irritating dwarf head of BA , claimed that the total of missing bags was 19,000 — more than BA had previously admitted.

Mathematicians will be fascinated to understand quite how BAA and BA count .

Meanwhile here is something that counts ..

Main capital write downs in the last 9 months

UBS: $37.4bn of which $19 Bn TODAY
Merrill Lynch: $22bn
Citigroup: $21.1bn
HSBC: $17.2bn
Morgan Stanley: $9.4bn
Deutsche Bank: $7.1bn
Bank of America: $5.3bn
Bear Stearns: $3.2bn
JP Morgan Chase: $3.2bn
BayernLB $3.2bn
Barclays: $2.6bn
IKB: $2.6bn
Royal Bank of Scotland: $2.6bn
Credit Suisse:$2bn
Deutsche Bank :$3.9 Bn. ...TODAY
TOTAL : $ 142.8 n

The internal BaFin study reported yesterday that shortfalls at finance institutions worldwide could end up totalling US$600 billion (€380 billion).

UPDATE 2/4/08 : Bloomberg has a complet (?) global list here Their table shows the $232 billion in asset writedowns and credit losses since the beginning of 2007, including reserves set aside for bad loans, at more than 45 of the world's biggest banks and securities firms.