'Radio silence' from WestJet as B.C. woman's luggage lost for almost 7 weeks
CBC
Ever since Erin Machette was in high school, a poster of Ireland hung on her wall.
In June, Machette and her husband finally travelled to the land of saints and scholars for their 27th anniversary. But when they arrived in Dublin after a delayed and rescheduled flight, their checked baggage was nowhere to be found.
This led to hours spent in customer service lines, on hold on the phone, and filling out online compensation forms and emails.
Her luggage has now been missing for almost seven weeks.
"We've just had radio silence from WestJet," she said from her home in Port Coquitlam, B.C., about 27 kilometres east of Vancouver.
"Get it together. This is not how you manage a company."
Machette estimates she has lost $6,000 — including the luggage and its contents, some of which are irreplaceable, and the expenses they incurred while in Ireland without their belongings.
She is one of the thousands of air passengers in Canada who have been frustrated by airlines in light of flight cancellations, delays, and lost baggage.
It's been a turbulent return to air travel in Canada as airlines ramp up service post-pandemic.
Many like Machette say they have lost faith in Canadian airlines whether from feeling misled over reasons for the cancellations, denied compensation claims, or lowball offers for baggage delays.
In the case of delayed and lost baggage, WestJet admits in a statement it has faced challenges as "a result of a myriad of circumstances that include flight delays and cancellations, resource constraints and ground operations."
The Vancouver Airport Authority says YVR currently has a 99 per cent success rate for the delivery of outbound baggage, but said in a statement "due to delays and disruptions across the global aviation network, we are seeing delays with baggage arriving at YVR."
Both WestJet and the Vancouver Airport Authority say they are working to improve baggage service.
From January to July, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) has received 1,176 baggage-related complaints.
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