Saskatchewan woman still searching for luggage from holiday

A Saskatchewan woman is still on the hunt for her lost luggage from her Mexico vacation over the holidays and wants answers from WestJet.

Michelle Linklater works as a family mediator and is trained in conflict resolution and coming up with solutions to tough situations, so she doesn’t believe that WestJet is doing enough.

“Communication is key, and WestJet is not answering,” Linklater told Gormley on Thursday.

The search continues for Linklater; she said she’s put a team of people together to travel to the Calgary airport next week to hopefully get some answers.

Linklater flew to Cancun from Saskatoon in December and was rerouted on a different flight. She told Gormley that when she arrived at the Calgary airport, she was told none of her bags were being unloaded off the plane due to a shortage of staff.

“But then we saw all this luggage all over the Calgary airport,” she said, adding she was able to help a family reunite with their luggage by calling the phone number she found on one of the bag tags she found.

After arriving in Cancun, she went through her whole vacation without any of her luggage, which contained Christmas presents.

When she returned Dec 30, that’s when she “learned that there were these mysterious rooms where people’s luggage was being held in” at the Cancun airport.

She told Gormley she gave staff her baggage tag number, only to be told that it had been reassigned to a different name.

“I didn’t really understand what was happening at that moment, but later on I found out that WestJet reassigned those baggage tag numbers,” she said, adding that even if her bag was found, it would’ve been reassigned to somebody else.

‘They told me that they only have so many numbers in their systems that they use.”

Linklater noted she already had an active baggage claim, but found out it had been closed.

The frustration didn’t stop there for Linklater.

Upon her return to Saskatoon, she went through five rooms full of luggage, but still couldn’t find hers.

On Wednesday she went back to the Saskatoon airport to follow up on the status of her luggage, but was still unsuccessful — although she said she was able to get a couple’s luggage back into their hands.

In an email, a WestJet public relations spokesperson said baggage tag numbers are reused, but customer names and a unique code are assigned to their baggage tags, “so our baggage system is able to distinguish between two guests in the event of an identical baggage tag number.”

If a bag is found without a tag, the spokesperson said it is sent the Central Baggage Services in Calgary where a team investigates the luggage and works to locate the owner.

The system, however, is in need of improvement, the spokeperson added.

“Following the holiday season and substantial weather-related disruptions we have identified our responsibility to improve our baggage systems and our ability to deliver baggage to guests efficiently and reliably,” the WestJet spokesperson said.

“We are currently undertaking a strategic review to improve our baggage services and are committed to working together with our third-party service partners to action changes across our operations to ensure we improve in this area.”