One air Canada Customer says he is annoyed and disappointed by the airline’s lack of effort to retrieve his lost luggage after tracking it using a apple airtag,
Paul Cliffer said, “You feel helpless like you can’t do anything.”
After hearing numerous reports of airlines losing luggage, Clifford and his wife invested in the Apple AirTag—a wireless tracking device that can be attached to many items, including checked bags.
The technique was tested last November when the Victoria, BC couple returned home from Mexico City.
When they landed in Vancouver before flying to Victoria, Clifford’s wife checked his airtag on his phone. “She said our bag was 4,000 kilometers away, which didn’t look good,” Clifford said.
The couple learned that the luggage was still sitting at the Mexico City International Airport.
Cliffer said he contacted an Air Canada agent and immediately began making a claim. He said he was told by an agent that his bag would be back home soon.
“My bag never arrived,” he said. “Over the next three days I went back to Victoria and they reiterated there was nothing they could do except send a note to Mexico City.”
‘The process burdens the Canadian consumer’: why travelers keep fighting the airlines
Winter storm warning issued for southern Quebec, up to 40 cm of snow could fall
However, after two weeks, Clifford said the situation went from bad to worse. He is shocked to see the location of the airtag, which indicates that the luggage is now sitting at the international airport in Madrid, Spain.
He said, ‘How can this happen?
Cliffer continued to reach out to Air Canada with no results. “They would escalate the file to a more critical stage and I would be contacted within 48 hours. That never happened,” Clifford said.
consumer affairs Contacted Air Canada on Cliffer’s behalf. Air Canada expressed its regret by saying:
“We fully realize how inconvenient it is when luggage is delayed and our goal is always to make the bag travel and arrive with the passenger. In this case, regrettably, this did not happen and, now that time has elapsed and the return has not been successful, we have advised the customer that we are progressing to compensation. The claim is currently being processed and we will get back to the customer directly.”
Air passenger rights, forced financing and more: Top consumer case stories of 2022
Gwen Stefani accused of cultural appropriation: ‘I’m Japanese and I didn’t know it’
Consumer Matters also provided Air Canada with a screenshot from Cliffer’s airtag showing his bag in Madrid, Spain, and asked the airline why it was not trying to find Cliffer’s bag, but the company did not respond. did not respond.
In his opinion, when it comes to baggage handling, it is often not a priority for the airline, said John Gradek, lecturer and program coordinator of the Aviation Management Program at McGill University.
“It’s not really part of an airline’s service strategy to make sure that the bag makes a detour to at least one destination,” he said.
Still, Gradek advised that the AirTag could be a helpful tool.
“To me the AirTag is a way for you to hold the airline accountable,” he said. “You can basically tail the airlines by going over their case and saying ‘please move my bag forward,'”
Although, in Cliffer’s case, Air Canada said it is pursuing compensation, he said he now felt abandoned.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.