2022 was a disastrous year for AC in terms of delayed baggage (see e.g.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-...ge-2022-a.html). Whatever the cause, I can understand it spiralled out of control and it took months to get back to "normal".
2023 doesn't seem to be such a mess overall yet, but AC's "normal" is still not up to snuff.
I rarely check baggage, but I've had to a couple of times last year. A week ago, Austrian Airlines left my bag behind in Vienna during a delay-shortened tight connection. I got a text message at touchdown saying it was still in Vienna, expressing regrets, inviting me to specify address online. I got further updates that it was on the next flight, and a phone call 40 mins after it arrived. Since I was at destination only one day, I chose to hold at airport for pickup (in PRG) in my onward journey, which went without a hitch in 5 minutes. A regrettable incident handled well.
Two days ago, AC left my bag behind in YUL in an exactly analogous situation (shortened cnx to YOW). No proactive notification. Long line at YOW to process all of us with luggage problems, which seemed like more than 1/2 the flight. Though it was clear where my bag was, it took nearly 24 hours in processing limbo with no-one doing anything until - as a SE100K 1MM - I got concierges involved. They found it, tagged it for next flight, made sure it got on, picked it off the belt in YOW, and made sure it got immediately to the delivery company. All's well that ends well, but all of those are steps that shouldn't need at concierge overseeing them, and I'm sure if I wasn't high status my baggage would be languishing somewhere for days or weeks more.
What's the underlying reason AC can't get it right? Are they just understaffing baggage handling? Is there a responsibility delimitation vs airport ground staff that gets in the way, that Austrian (and others) don't have? Something else? As a pax, I get annoyed when it fails. Putting that feeling aside, as a business decisionmaker it seems like something which should be easy to fix, and so stave off quite a bit of reputational damage, with just some targeted resourcing. So I'm curious why this is (apparently) not getting done.