Apple’s AirTag has another episode of its “lost luggage stories”.
The AirTag has made headlines in social media once again, and this time, it has successfully reunited a couple with their lost luggage, four months after Air Canada said they were unable to find it.
According to a report from Insider, Nakita Rees and Tom Wilson were traveling home from their honeymoon when one of their checked luggages, with an AirTag inside it, got left behind in Montreal, Quebec. The couple wasn’t worried at first and simply filed a lost luggage with Air Canada.
Things took a mysterious turn when the airline said they could not find it – for four months. The couple discovered their luggage was eventually donated to charity, as Air Canada in their defense claimed that they were unable to determine who the owners were.
In a series of TikTok videos, Rees shared their experience, explaining their “lost” bag had been moved to a “public storage facility just outside Toronto” for three months. The couple went to the storage facility, but their efforts were in vain. They then visited the Toronto Pearson Airport, where they found out that Air Canada does not use the storage facility where the AirTag indicated the bag was there.
With no more options left, the couple decided to file a police report. The police opened the storage area and found “wall-to-wall luggage”, but they failed to locate the couple’s luggage amongst piles of 1,200 bags.
When the story began to go viral on TikTok, Air Canada assigned an “individual case handler” to the couple. After that, the luggage was found within 24 hours and was delivered to the couple’s home within 48 hours.
Rees said in the video that everything in the bag was intact, including a bottle of wine. But, she told Insider, the airline partially blamed the couple because they left no identifying information inside the bag.
The police investigation revealed that Air Canada donated the bag to charity, and that charity used the said storage facility.
Air Canada tried to do some damage control, blaming the pandemic. In their email statement to CBC News:
This customer traveled late in the summer at a time when all air carriers in Canada were still recovering from the COVID-related, systemic disruption of the entire air transport industry. One consequence was an elevated rate of baggage delays.
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.
AirTag helping to Find Lost Items
The AirTag has been featured in the news already for a number of situations ever since it first launched in 2021.
While unfortunately it has been used for selfish and nefarious reasons like stalking and illegal activities (don’t worry, Apple has already launched software updates to crack down on misuse and stalking), still many other stories put the AirTag in a positive light, like the stories of: a woman who found her lost luggage at a residential apartment complex, and a man who tracked his lost wallet across 35 cities.
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