Advertisement

An Air Canada passenger who deliberately took only a carry-on to avoid luggage chaos says she was made to check the bag anyway, only for it to go missing

Luggage starts to pile up at Pearson International Airport on June 10 2022.
Luggage starts to pile up at Pearson International Airport on June 10 2022.Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images.
  • An Air Canada flier told Insider she didn't check a bag due to disruption at airports.

  • She told Insider the airline made her check her carry-on, then lost the bag.

  • The woman's story is one of hundreds in the summer of 2022 amid travel chaos around the world.

An Air Canada passenger who recently lost luggage said she deliberately only packed a carry-on bag to avoid the travel disruption consuming the airline industry, but was later made to check the bag, only to have the airline misplace it.

Emily Maitino — who travelled with her partner from LAX to Barcelona via Air Canada on June 29 — told Insider that she was made to check the bag at LAX after the airline told her there was no more room for carry-ons.

She later realized the bag was missing after waiting at the luggage carousel in Barcelona for two hours.

"I'm feeling really frustrated," Maitino said, adding that she had called Air Canada seven or eight times in the days after the bag went missing, but hadn't received a response.

Maitino is one of many passengers who have recently lost their luggage on Air Canada flights.

Other passengers have taken to social media to express their frustrations over lost luggage. Another Air Canada passenger told Insider that they made 20 calls in one day to Air Canada after the airline misplaced their luggage on a connecting flight from Lisbon, Portugal, to LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York.

Video: Marriott exec says travel mindset has changed since pandemic

In a statement sent to Insider, a spokesperson for Air Canada said instances of delayed bags could be attributed to more passengers and luggage, as well as a changing "operating environment," citing "security and customs lines, aircraft being held at gates unable to unload at airports, and limitations on the number of flights by air traffic control."

The aviation industry has plunged into chaos in the summer of 2022 as both airlines and airports struggle to recruit the staff needed to process the surging passenger numbers.

At Toronto Pearson International Airport — Canada's largest airport and one of the airline's hubs — thousands of unclaimed bags have piled up.

Air Canada is not the only airline which has faced disruption and passenger frustration recently.

This week, Britain's flagship airline British Airways announced it would cancel over 10,000 short-haul flights to and from London airports this summer. Earlier in the week, Scandinavian Airlines canceled hundreds of flights after pilots went on strike.

Other airlines trimming their summer schedules include Lufthansa and Delta.

Read the original article on Business Insider