After spending five months trying to track down and recover her lost luggage, Nakita Rees says she’s still waiting on an apology from Air Canada.
“I hope they would take the smallest, even the smallest amount of accountability. I’d love to hear them reach out to us even just a simple apology.”
Nakita Rees and her husband Tom Wilson were flying back from their honeymoon in September when their luggage got lost during a layover in Montreal.
Rees says Air Canada emailed her in October to say “after an extensive search, unfortunately, we were unable to find your baggage.”
The certified athletic therapist told Humber News she received compensation from the airline, but she didn’t give up her search. An AirTag tracking device on her bag showed the luggage still in Quebec.
“We watched the luggage moved from Montreal airport to what we now know is like their head of tracing processing warehouse that’s just off, it’s owned by Air Canada, and it’s just off of the airport,” Rees said.
“I sent them screenshots of where my luggage was and I sent them a screenshot of it moving down the highway.”
Eventually, she tracked it down to a warehouse in Etobicoke. She and her husband went to the location to see if their AirTag would connect and when it did they contacted the police to get into the storage unit. What they found was a room full of people’s luggage.
The unit that our luggage was in which has at least 499, maybe more pieces of luggage and I want them to find every single person’s owner because my husband said some of the bags so you could see had a tag on them. So these weren’t lost, not all of them.” Rees said.
Rees created a series of TikTok videos blasting Air Canada’s handling of the situation.
After her TikToks about the situation went viral, the couple was contacted by a third-party company that was given the luggage and ended up getting their bag returned to them last week but still have not heard anything from Air Canada.
She’s not the only person complaining about how the airline has handled complaints.
“I have been reaching out daily to get the status for compensation and luggage. I have been brushed off, hung up on, and ignored the entire time,” Cynthia Rose another Air Canada passenger whose luggage was lost told Humber News.
“They have only started to respond as I have included the minister of transportation, a lawyer, and the CEO/VP in all correspondence.”
Press Secretary for the Office of the Minister of Transport Nadine Ramadan, said in a statement to Humber News on the situation “Canadians rightly expect an efficient air transportation system where their rights as passengers are upheld.”
“We expect airlines to uphold their obligations to passengers, which includes baggage not getting lost or damaged while in the airline’s care.”
Air Canada did not respond to our request for comment.