Air Canada lost a passenger’s checked luggage and instead of compensating the passenger, the airline is is suing them.
The man and his wife flew from Toronto to Vancouver in 2022. Their bags were lost. They didn’t get reasonable compensation, so they complained to the Canadian Transportation Agency who awarded them $2,079. After two years, the airline did not pay. Instead, they’ve filed suit against the couple. In fact, the passengers were served on Christmas Eve.
Air Canada is taking Tannous to Federal Court in an attempt to overturn the CTA’s decision.
The CTA, Canada’s transport regulator, isn’t named in the court case, so Tannous is on his own.
And since the customers don’t want to have to come out of pocket for lawyers in addition to being out their checked bags, Air Canada is going to win a default judgment. “There’s no point for me to waste more money,” the man says.
- Air Canada says they delivered the bag to the customer’s hotel, and it was only delayed about 24 hours.
- The customers, though, say Air Canada had given no indication that the luggage was found, or would ever be found – and they’d already left the hotel when it was delivered.
- Air Canada says they spent too much money, too quickly, and made purchases after the bag was delivered (but the customers didn’t even know the bag had been delivered). The suitcase was classified as ‘missing’ and not ‘lost’ so the CAD$2,400 maximum payout didn’t apply.
Canada’s Transportation regulator agreed with the customer, not the airline. Still, Air Canada did find the bag – after only about a day – but communicated this poorly. And the customers treated the bag as lost and spent – the bulk after the bag was ostensibly ‘found’:
$570.12 for toiletries, make up and skin care products
$1,121.86: $348.84 for a dress, 2 x trousers, 3 x tops
$247.52 for 4 x sets of lingerie and 1 x sleepwear
$525.50 for underwear, jeans and 2 x t-shirts…
$433.61 for one pair of ladies sneakers…
$1310.40 for one personally monogrammed Tumi piece of luggage
This isn’t the first time Air Canada has sued its passengers. They delayed a flight from Vancouver to Costa Rica for 24 hours. After three years, the Canadian Transportation Agency – which generally didn’t even require the airline to offer refunds to customers even when Air Canada cancelled flight during Covid – awarded two passengers who complained $1,000 each. Once again, the airline didn’t pay. And like in this case, they sued instead.
Other airlines have sued passengers, too. Finnair won $8,200 against customers that had sought EU261 delay compensation.
- When the passengers couldn’t get Finnair to pay compensation (Finnair blamed Airbus for issues with its new A350s and said it wasn’t responsible), the passengers turned their claim over to a third party – IfDelayed – to pursue the claim on their behalf and split proceeds.
- IfDelayed sued Finnair, lost, and was ordered to pay Finnair’s legal expenses – so they declared bankruptcy.
- Since Finnair couldn’t recover legal expenses from the company that sued them, they went after the passengers whose claims were involved in the suit.
Finnair wanted the cost of its lawyers back. Air Canada didn’t want to pay for lost luggage. In both cases, they’re in a position to litigate individual passengers into oblivion.
Although the story took place in Canada, it highlights the need for a better tort system in many places, including the US. On the one hand, companies spend millions on frivolous, nonsense lawsuits. On the other hand, individuals often find themselves powerless against large corporations, even when the are clearly in the right, because they lack the resources to fight in court. I don’t have the answers, but a system that could adjudicate all but the most serious or complex claims via some kind of simple arbitration could perhaps save corporations money while empowering individual claimants. Everyone except the lawyers might win (which is why it is unlikely to be implemented).
Good to know, thanks Gary ! The first case regarding Air Canada and the delayed luggage appears to be entirely the fault of the couple, who rushed out to purchase what were clearly luxury goods. It would be fascinating to learn of the actual goods in their original luggage: Even if they were of similar quality (doubt it), they would obviously be depreciated. The other two cases are far more of a concern to me, in both of them the issues should have been litigated between the carriers and the government (if at all). Even after the fact, the respective governments should have stepped in, in order to prevent the carriers from generating a chilling effect that would squash future legitimate claims.
Oh, how I wish we had better consumer protections in the United States. At least the Canadian Transportation Agency appears to be trying to help these deserving passengers in-need. If only Congress would actually have a backbone and serve the people instead of special interests like the airline lobbies, we may also manage to legislate something like Canada’s APPR or the EU/UK 261, which would compensate us a couple hundred dollars every time the airline is at fault for excessive delays and cancelations under their control (like for aircraft maintenance and staffing issues). I’ll repeat an iteration of this plea every time at topic like this comes up. And I’ll proudly battle the shills.
Those are some premium sneakers.
Sounds like the kind of thing Delta would do. I’m surprised about the others though since the optics are just so bad.
$1310.40 for one personally monogrammed Tumi piece of luggage, not even 24 hrs after their bag was “lost”. That is all one needs to know about this case. This is a couple that tried gaming the system and are being rebuked. Air Canada had every right under the law to take this to court, but now they are the big bad corporate bully. Only in 2025.
@Humdrum — As is anyone’s right to sue for remedies, but siding with Air Canada is not a popular take among most passengers who know better than to blindly trust this or any airline, especially based on personal experiences with this particular giant.
I was empathetic until I saw what the people bought. Total scam. They deserve to be sued.
Air Canada … my only ‘one and done’ airline. Obviously, they’re even more brain-dead today than when we flew them (sort of) 15 years ago … for the first and last time. First class flights and they screwed up both of them from sheer incompetence.
This past summer, I flew ET on a short intra Europe leg. My bag didnt get offloaded and made it to ADD before it was flown back to Europe and eventually delivered to my hotel about 46 hours later. I ended up spending about $270 on clothes and toiletries which they eventually paid. Spending 2k within 24 hours seems crazy and I can see how AC saw this as unreasonable.
The tort system is a very wasteful system to litigate cases like this. Insurance would work much better. The law should be chaged.
Hey @1990, did you read the same article as everyone else ??? You state: “Oh, how I wish we had better consumer protections in the United States. At least the Canadian Transportation Agency appears to be trying to help these deserving passengers in-need”. According to the facts of the story, that’s completely false. In the United States, the consumer protection laws are written such that the carriers (or any other regulated party) cannot retaliate against consumers for reporting them. Consumers that make baggage lost & damage claims, or late flight claims, or excess time on tarmac claims etc are in the same category as whistleblowers, as determined by the Federal Government. Per the .gov website, “whistleblowing occurs when an individual provides information that they reasonably believe evidences wrongdoing to an authorized recipient”.
Case for the insurance vs. tort solution. As originally applied to a related field.
https://scholar.smu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1727&context=jalc
Air Canada posted a response on LinkedIn:
In particular, in its reporting, the CBC failed to include the fact that the customers claimed $1,310 for a monogrammed Tumi bag that was purchased on May 28, 2022, two days after the delayed bag was returned.
The customer’s bag was delivered less than 24 hours after their own arrival. The customer’s flight arrived in Vancouver at 11:08 am on May 25, 2022 and the bag was delivered to their hotel on May 26, 2022 at 9:15 am. Below is a list of items claimed, which was also provided to CBC (all times local), but not included in its report.
May 25, 2022: $570.12 for toiletries, make up and skin care products
$1,121.86: $348.84 for a dress, 2 x trousers, 3 x tops
$247.52 for 4 x sets of lingerie and 1 x sleepwear
$525.50 for underwear, jeans and 2 x t-shirts
May 26, 2022: Bag delivered to hotel at 9:15 am
May 26, 2022: $433.61 for one pair of ladies sneakers purchased at 6:54 pm
May 28, 2022: $1310.40 for one personally monogrammed Tumi piece of luggage, purchased at 11:23 pm
Under current law, Air Canada cannot appeal decisions by the Canadian Transportation Agency to the agency itself and must instead appeal to the Federal Court. In this case, Air Canada has chosen to appeal to the Federal Court because it is seeking guidance on what constitutes reasonable expenses that customers can claim.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/air-canada-statement-its-appeal-canadian-transportation-agency-b286e/?trackingId=BSey9CdI16ErgAAqoCP%2B5g%3D%3D
My bag was delivered 24 hours after my arrival in France last spring. I bought a jacket. I needed a new one anyway. Everything else I needed for the 24 hours of delay was in carryon. These people tried to scam Air Canada.
Air Canada is awful, and our passenger protections are woefully inadequate, BUT…
This couple went on a $3,000 shopping spree with what they thought would be free money from an airline. There are two villains, here, and no protagonists.
@Potsey Weber – I linked to and quoted from their linkedin post
@TexasTJ — I did read. And I think most of us are in agreement about not wanting the airlines to retaliate against us. I was adding an adjacent point about consumer protections which are very much related. I recognize there isn’t likely to be much progress in the US anytime soon on this. As a country, we really do prioritize special interests over the people.