Woman working to locate lost luggage weeks after flight

It’s been three weeks since Saskatoon’s Michelle Linklater last saw her suitcase.

Her bag, filled with Christmas presents, went missing after a trip to Mexico over the holidays, and so far there’s no indication that she’ll be getting it back any time soon.

Speaking from Edmonton, where she travelled for a medical appointment and to search for her lost bag, Linklater said she was informed by a WestJet representative that the tag number associated with her missing luggage had been reassigned to another customer.

“I’m choked to find out they closed my claim and they reassigned my baggage tag to somebody else,” she said.

Linklater said WestJet claimed her bag went missing due to simple human error, and because her bags have been missing for longer than two weeks, she could be eligible for an additional $1,000 on top of any other compensation she may already qualify for. Linklater said she told the airline she’d prefer getting her bag back.

“I said, ‘I don’t want $1,000. I want my bag,’ ” she said.

Now, Linklater said she’s worried that whoever her baggage number was assigned to will end up with her bag as well as their own. Linklater, however, said she was able to find out the name of the person who was assigned her baggage number from a customer service representative.

“I’m going to be messaging all these (people) with this last name and saying ‘Hey, by chance did you receive a bag?’ WestJet said they can’t contact him. Well, who can?” she asked.

During her search for her wayward luggage, Linklater said she’s come across hundreds of suitcases with no tags, or tags that have been ripped off, often stored in large rooms at airports along with other unclaimed bags.

“In Edmonton, there’s 700 to 800 tag-less bags,” she said.

She claimed that airline staff are opening some of those bags and asking customers to identify the contents as a way to claim them.

Linklater advised anyone else who is missing luggage to visit their local airport to see if they can locate their bags.

CKOM’s request for comment from WestJet was not answered.