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An Air Canada pilot told Insider she hadn’t checked in a bag due to disruptions at airports.
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The passenger then had to check her hand luggage, which the airline had lost, she told Insider.
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The woman’s story is one of hundreds in the summer of 2022 amid travel chaos around the world.
An Air Canada passenger who had recently lost luggage said she deliberately packed a carry-on bag to avoid the travel disruption that consumed the airline industry, but was later forced to check the bag that was then missing.
Emily Maitino — who traveled with her partner from LAX to Barcelona on June 29 via Air Canada — told Insider she had to check the bag in LA after being told there was no more room for hand luggage.
She later realized the bag was missing after waiting two hours at the baggage claim in Barcelona.
“I feel really frustrated,” Maitino told Insider, adding that she called Air Canada seven or eight times in the days after the bag went missing, but got no response.
Air Canada did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
Maitino is one of many passengers who have recently lost their luggage on Air Canada flights.
Other passengers have used social media to express their frustrations over lost luggage. Another Air Canada passenger told Insider that they called Air Canada 20 times in one day after the airline lost their luggage on a connecting flight from Lisbon, Portugal, to LaGuardia in New York.
The airline industry has plunged into chaos in the summer of 2022 as both airlines and airports struggle to recruit the staff needed to handle rising 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 to have experienced disruption and frustration among passengers in recent times.
Britain’s flagship airline British Airways announced this week that it would cancel more than 10,000 short-haul flights to and from London airports this summer. Earlier this week, Scandinavian Airlines had to cancel hundreds of flights after pilots went on strike.
Other airlines adjusting their summer schedules include Lufthansa and Delta.
Read the original article on Business Insider
