It took two-and-a-half months for Michael Hunter to get reimbursed by Air Canada for his damaged luggage.
“They’ve lost my bag on several occasions and I’ve always got it back. As frustrating as that is, it does happen and I understand, and they’re pretty quick within a couple days, usually, to get your bag, but I’ve never had a bag damaged,” Hunter said in an interview with CTV News Toronto.
Hunter is a chef and co-owner of Antler, located on Dundas Street West, and says he has been a longtime supporter of Air Canada so he can maintain his Aeroplan status and reap the perks of doing so whenever he travels.
On April 17, Hunter was returning home to Toronto from a work-related event in Austin, Texas. He says he hadn’t noticed anything was wrong with his bag until he returned home and saw it was “completely torn up.”
“It was destroyed, there was no hope in fixing where the damage was,” Hunter said, adding that the lining of his bag was intact so none of his personal belongings slipped out.
He had barely used this duffel bag, having flown with it about five times, and described the bag’s durability by pointing to its hard plastic bottom and its sturdy fabric as proof.
“It either got dropped or just mishandled or thrown,” Hunter said. “It sort of broke at the seam where the fabric was sewn to the plastic. It was just completely destroyed and ripped off.”
Hunter tried to file a damaged baggage claim online, but ultimately had to go back to Toronto Pearson to lodge his complaint in person.
“I thought that was extremely inconvenient,” Hunter said.
Nonetheless, he returned to the airport, waited to get through the secure area where the baggage desk was, and submitted his claim to Air Canada staff. It took him a couple of hours to file his complaint.
About three or four days after filing his claim, Hunter said he got a response from a third party asking to upload photos of his damaged luggage and provide further details.
“They offered to replace my bag with a generic bag that was (a) completely different size,” Hunter said, adding that it was about 14 inches shorter in length than his original bag. “I had a name-brand Eddie Bauer bag, it wasn’t crazy expensive but it was like 250 bucks.”
Hunter declined that option and said he later received an automated message, stating that someone from Air Canada would contact him shortly.
Days and weeks went by, and Hunter said he heard nothing. He tried calling, but said he was told to input his file number through Air Canada’s damaged baggage portal.
“When I did that, the case number said that it was resolved,” Hunter recounted. “That’s when sort of some alarms started going off.”
Hunter took to X to share his grievances online in hopes the airline would respond to him there, but Air Canada hadn’t. So, he kept calling the airline, saying he would go through the same “rigmarole” of providing his case number, the flight numbers and times, but wouldn’t get any answers for what was happening with his damaged baggage.
“It was just infuriating,” Hunter said. “It’s totally designed to make you give up as opposed for them to have accountability of damaging your property.”
It was during his sixth phone call with the airline that Hunter said he started to lose patience.
“I said, ‘Listen, I have status with you guys, I choose to fly with you guys, I’m really getting frustrated,’” Hunter said, noting how he has Aeroplan 50K Status. To get this status with Aeroplan, customers typically have to obtain 50,000 qualifying credits within a calendar year and provide loyal travelers with benefits, like passes to their airport lounges or a credit to upgrade to a higher class on a flight.
But on June 29, Hunter says he finally got compensated for the full total of the cost of his duffel, which he received by e-transfer.
“I think one of the reasons why they actually (refunded me) was because I had to like basically tell them I have status with your airline,” Hunter said.
The Toronto-based chef ultimately wishes Air Canada had resolved the matter faster and with more professionalism.
“It was just like, ‘Get in line, fill out these forms, see you later,’” Hunter said. “The fact that I had to fight to get it dealt with was annoying. I understand things happen, and I don’t think I’m being unreasonable.”
Damaged luggage protocols
A spokesperson for Air Canada says it requires baggage agents to assess the damage in-person whenever there is a damage claim, which is why the airline asks passengers to lodge these kinds of complaints at the airport.
“We are committed to making things right if the bag was indeed damaged during transport, which happened in this particular case as we reimbursed the full value,” Air Canada said in an emailed statement. The airline did not respond to the comment on why it took two-and-a-half months to reimburse Hunter for his bag.
Founder of Air Passenger Rights Gábor Lukács told CTV News Toronto that under the Canada Transportation Act, airlines are required to respond to the claim within 30 days.
While Air Canada did reimburse Hunter for the damage, Lukács also noted that airlines cannot “wash its hands” by offering a passenger with a replacement unless the passenger accepts the offer, understanding their right to have it repaired or replaced.
How to handle damaged luggage
“Airlines love to try to impose their own protocols on passengers – without any basis in law. They just say, ‘this is our policy’ – and expect passengers to take it for face value, even if it is inconsistent with the law,” Lukács said.
Travellers with damaged luggage should document it and report it at the airport, if possible, Lukács says, and then file a written complaint to the airline.
After, Lukács says to get the bag repaired or replaced and submit a written request for compensation from the airline, demanding payment arrives within 30 days. If the airline does not pay or respond within that time, Lukács says the traveller could take the airline to small claims court.
“We strongly discourage passengers from taking such matters to the back-log ridden (97,000 complaints) and airline-friendly Canadian Transportation Agency, where they may have to wait two to three years,” Lukács said.
