Mr. Bean

Hey everyone, my father was travelling CLE-YYZ-BOM on AC metal today with one checked bag and was denied boarding on his onward flight to BOM in YYZ because his checked bag didn't make the connection in time.

We are used to flying on US carriers and have never experienced this before. We have heard of carriers that don't load bags without the pax flying, but have never heard of being denied boarding because of missing baggage. The missing baggage is obviously beyond our control as passengers.

Is this a real excuse for denied boarding that AC uses or was he told something untrue? If true, why is this a policy? How and when the bags gets loaded/unloaded are beyond our control, so why do we as passengers get punished for that?

yosemite1

Never experienced this, seems a little crazy - and I hope AC was able to compensate in some sort of way for forcing you to miss your flight.
Literally 3-4 days ago, I ran across FRA airport and made my connection (AC Metal, LH codeshare stock), and my bags didn't make it. And once I arrived back home in YYZ they simply shipped my bags to me...

ScGhost0

Yeah I had a similar experience coming back from the USA and had them shipped to me as well. No boarding issues, and I even said to the GA I doubt that my bags made it because of the late inbound and she just said "well we'll get them to you somehow" and didn't say another word about it.

Come to think of it, on a slightly opposite note, had my bag (on a different carrier) not make the flight, I got home and everything, and when the bag finally came to me, somehow it had been to Cancun. So not only did I board without my bags, but my bags also had a vacation without me as well.

Sean Peever

It's considered a security risk if your bag gets on the plane and you don't. It's however NOT considered a security risk if you get on the plane and your bag doesn't. I am sure this logically makes sense to most. Aka, they should have not been refused boarding (unless of course something else was going on that has not been shared in the original post, such as the bag was inspected and they found stuff in there that isn't supposed to fly, and had to detain the pax - not suggesting this happened, but just providing context on an example of a possibility).

As for being told something "untrue". As I alluded to above there are other possibilities that would make this "true" but they are more on the extreme side. However, I can say that the gate agents etc at AC don't do these kinds of things to be malicious or to cover up other problems - they are generally just not trained correctly or don't have a proper understanding of procedures.

Often1

In theory --- just in theory --- if you board without your bag, whatever the security risk on your flight is eliminated. But, that still means that your bag travels on another flight, so the risk, whatever it is comes about on that flight.

However, the rules relate to voluntarily separating from your bags. In other words, if you check in and then do not board, your bags will be offloaded. But, if your bags don't make the connection and you do, that is not a change you initiated and thus the risk, whatever it is, can't be controlled by you. You can hardly say to the GA when he checks and tells you that your bag is being loaded, "I guess I don''t want to be on this aircraft!"

I suspect that this was a poorly trained agent who either simply said the wrong thing or misunderstood the issue.

Stranger

Odd story though. Almost sounds like the agent made up a story to explain a denied boarding for some other reason, such as a flight that was oversold.

smallmj

Or the passenger had been automatically offloaded because of a late-ish inbound.

Stranger

Indeed that would make sense.

But I don't think they really do that except if the flight is oversold.

In any event, in that case, it might be worth revisiting recent CTA rulings; OP might have a case.

yyznomad

Time for another CBC article y'all.

padawanflyer

I've hit something like this before. Flying with a colleague from FRA to YVR, connecting in YYZ. The FRA-YYZ flight was late arriving, so we both rushed as fast as we could through the terminal to get to our gate for the YVR flight, we get there *just* in time. I have checked bags, my colleague does not. They let him board, but told me I cannot because I've been offloaded since my bags haven't made it.

rickg523

Probably the only way to find out what actually was going on here. AC seems to respond to media in ways they can't seem to muster for customers.

vroom

Yesterday's AC 7408 landed 45 minutes late at 20:13, schedule departure time for AC 46 was 20:35. So this is probably what happened.

yyznomad

I'm almost inclined to start a "When Air Canada employees lie..." thread.

Of course, difficult to 110% prove that it was a lie, so would have to go with balance of probabilities.

Just for slippery slope fun.

Sean Peever

Is a lack of understanding or knowledge a lie? Are you lieing if you think you're telling the truth?

Stranger

We don't know that the agent thought he was telling the truth. More like he probably did not know why the passenger was offloaded and he invented what he saw as a plausible explanation? But of course, chances are he knew but thought better than telling it as is was. Somewhat understandably.