"We got really excited because we’re like ‘Oh it’s coming back to Toronto, it’s going to go to a processing facility, this is awesome’,” she said in one of the videos.
However, another three months passed and the bags did not move from their new location, a public storage facility, now closer to the couple, but still out of reach and with no response from Air Canada.
“Air Canada, they compensated us for maybe a quarter of the value of the items,” Rees-Wilson said, clarifying that they were not given an opportunity to accept or reject the compensation.
A visit to the Toronto storage facility
“But we noticed it was still at this storage facility, so what do we do, we go to the storage facility,” Rees-Wilson said. Their first visit was unsuccessful as the tracking tag would not know exactly where within the building it was.
One week later, the location updated, showing a more specific location, so her husband returned to the building and paced around, following the tracker.
Peering through a locked door, he saw rooms piled floor-to-ceiling with luggage.
By this point, the couple contacted the police, who obtained a search warrant for the storage facility. What they found, Rees-Wilson, would “blow your mind”.
“Our luggage was donated to a charity on behalf of Air Canada,” she said, explaining that the public storage unit was owned by the charity, which also had a facility in Montreal.
“They are driving, in cargo vans, luggage, once a month from airports,” Rees-Wilson explained. Police allegedly told Rees-Wilson they found over 500 pieces of luggage at the Toronto facility, which included valuables such as iPhones, laptops and iPads.
Toronto Police said the charity organisation was “contracted by the airline carrier” and had “lawfully obtained the luggage from the airline” in a statement to Global News.
On social media, Rees-Wilson described the events as “criminal”. She wondered whether receiving compensation meant Air Canada gained ownership of the bag.
After digging into Air Canada’s terms and conditions, Rees-Wilson could not find anything suggesting she ceded rights to the bag or that it would be donated after a certain number of months or days.
“Air Canada wrongfully donated my luggage after less than 30 days to a charity without my knowledge of consent. You do not own this property and therefore can not donate it,” she stated.
The bag returns and Air Canada explains
One day, months after the pair lost their bag, it was returned. In a TikTok updating people about the latest development, the pair said the situation continued to feel deceptive.
“Within 24 hours they found it even though they couldn’t find it in four months before,” said Rees-Wilson’s husband.
“They just said they found it in a warehouse,” she added. “I don’t know if a public storage unit is a warehouse.”
Air Canada said they had experienced “an elevated rate of baggage delay” when the couple had travelled.
“In this particular case, the situation was compounded by the disconnection of the baggage tag at some point on the journey. Despite our best efforts, it was not possible for us to identify the bag’s owner. It was designated as unclaimed, and we moved to compensate the customer,” said a statement from the airline.
“Bags whose ownership cannot be determined can be disposed of after 90 days, which we do through a third-party company, which does make donations to charity.”
On TikTok, Rees-Wilson claimed the airline “made zero effort to connect them to their luggage” and believed they were only reunited because of the public interest they created.
“So why now that we are called a high-profile case, because we brought the story to the media, did it only take them 24 to 48 hours to find it in a warehouse? But they weren’t able to find it before, even though we told them exactly where it was,” she asked.
Some viewers commented messages of disbelief and support on the videos. One person said the issue had encouraged them to buy baggage tracking tags for an upcoming trip.
