Ontario woman tracks down her missing suitcase but Sunwing won't let her get it

An Ontario woman whose luggage was left behind while travelling with Sunwing over the holidays says the AirTag she packed shows her bag has been sitting near the tarmac at Toronto Pearson Airport for more than two weeks.

“I was part of the Sunwing nightmare,” Janet Greaves told CTV News Toronto Friday, referring to mass delays and cancellations experienced by Sunwing travellers beginning on Dec. 22.

“We arrived at [Toronto Pearson International Airport] at 3:30 a.m and the check-in lineup was already out the door,” Greaves said in an interview Friday.

The couple’s flight was originally scheduled for 6:30 a.m., but four back-to-back delays saw their departure time pushed back to approximately 10 a.m.

When the plane took off, Greaves said she could still see her bag sitting on the tarmac.

“I knew that I didn't have a bag, but apparently the majority of the plane didn't get their bags either,” she said.

Upon landing in Varadero, Cuba, Greaves said she received an alert from Sunwing notifying her that her bag would not be flown to Cuba at all, that it wouldn’t arrive in time and that she would be reunited with it upon her return to Toronto.

The couple says they went the duration of their trip without any of their belongings and purchased what they could from local markets.

The whole time, Greaves said the AirTag she secured inside her bag indicated the luggage was still on Pearson’s tarmac, near an Air Canada hangar.

Upon their return, on Jan. 2, Greaves says she was told airline staff couldn’t locate her bag in the designated warehouse.

“I said ‘Well, it's not here. It's on the tarmac directly behind the Air Canada hangar,’” she said and showed them where the AirTag suggested her bag was. She then says she was told the area she was referencing was a “secure area,” meaning it could not be retrieved at that time, and to come back when her bag was ready for pick-up.

But, to this day, Greaves said her bag hasn’t moved from the tarmac.

“I wake up every day and look, and it’s still there, and I just can't get anyone to listen to me and help me,” she said.

Since Greaves returned home, she says she’s been in a constant back-and-forth with Sunwing, attempting to convince them to retrieve her bag. She’s even offered to hand her phone over to a staff member and let them retrieve the bag using the AirTag without her, she says, but so far, her efforts have been unsuccessful.

“I’ve tried to communicate with them through Twitter, through WhatsApp, through messenger, and I call every other day to the baggage claim department,” she said.

Greater Toronto Airport Authority says each airline, not the airport itself, is responsible for baggage delivery, “including warehousing/staging of bags, reuniting passengers with their baggage and providing guidance on where and how to pick up bags.”

When reached for comment, Sunwing says it continues to make “every effort to reunite customers with their bags that did not accompany them on their journeys.”

“We have advised impacted customers [travelling out of Toronto Pearson between December 24-27] of a new scheduling-based system where customers can call Central Baggage to confirm their baggage has been located and documented at our sorting facility, and book an appointment for pick up,” they said.

Greaves says the problem, however, is that her bag is not at central baggage or the sorting facility, and doesn’t seem to be moving at all, according to her AirTag.

Sunwing has since issued an apology to passengers who were impacted by the “unprecedented operational challenges” over the holidays.

In a joint statement issued on Jan. 5, Sunwing Travel Group CEO Stephen Hunter and Sunwing Airlines president Len Corrado said they are "incredibly sorry for letting customers down."

"We regret that we did not meet the level of service our customers expect from Sunwing," the executives said.

"We had clear failures in execution, particularly in responding to weather-related delays and the aftermath of severe weather disruptions, which limited our ability to reposition aircraft and crew to other airports to help alleviate the backlog in flights."

This apology, however, hasn’t changed the fact that Greaves is without her belongings.

“My winter coat is in there, and the keys to my car,” she said, adding that the total value of everything in her bag is approximately $4,000.

“I'm trying to be patient and I'm trying to be understanding because it was a disaster that day,” she said. “But [,..] I think the airport should have given me the option to not to go on that vacation when they knew my bag wouldn’t make it.”

“They should’ve said ‘I can't guarantee your bag will be safe, and I can't guarantee that your bag will be with you on the plane,’ and they should have given me that choice rather than saying ‘Everything's fine’ and putting me on a plane.”

According to Sunwing policy, “a checked bag is deemed lost if it is not located within 21 days from the date it was supposed to be delivered to you,” so Greaves has to wait until Monday until she can apply for reimbursement. Even when she does, Sunwing's policy states it will only reimburse up to $2,000 CAD.

“I'm just frustrated and I don't know what else to do and I don't want to make a claim,” Greaves said.

“I want my bag back.”