Stowing your luggage in the hold is a bit like playing Russian roulette this summer. A couple from Saint-Jérôme can testify: on a return trip to Paris. They misplaced six suitcases out of eight.
“With Air France, you travel light,” says Elisabeth Boisgrand, laughing, even if “it’s not funny because we’re laughing.”
The 39-year-old mum returned to see her family in the Paris region for the first time in three years. With their spouse and their two children, aged 6 and 9, they landed in Montreal at 9 p.m. Sunday evening after 14 days in France.
If Air France manages to “lose only two suitcases out of four” on the way there, it’s a disaster on the way back. None of her four suitcases went with her.
“It’s disgusting to do that, especially at the price we’re paying. It cost us $5,000 for the four tickets and we were stressed the whole time,” she said.
On Monday, the nightmare wasn’t over: she had to spend five hours with five different Air France customer service agents to repeat her request.
“No one helped me, everyone said something different,” says the native Frenchman.
She finally made it, and not thanks to those five employees. She also had to fill out a document at the airport, have it stamped by a customs official, and give it back to the Air France desk clerk.
He was then asked to repeat everything for the online claim. Now she waits for news.
Invoices for everything you need
At Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Paris, where two suitcases were lost, “nobody told us anything,” explains Ms. Boisgrand.
Same scenario in Montreal. After landing Sunday night, her partner stayed with the baggage carousel while she conducted her investigation.
“Another passenger told me that an employee told him that 80% of the suitcases didn’t make the trip,” she says.
The height is that Air France asks to show the invoices for everything that is in the lost suitcases.
“You keep receipts for your old stockings, don’t you?” she asks jokingly.
Aéroports de Montréal states that baggage is the responsibility of the airlines.
It is the airlines’ ground teams who have the mandate to unload the planes and then place the baggage directly onto the belts.
Air France admits that the number of lost bags is currently higher than normal.
The fault lies with the airports
“They will continue to be transported to their destination before being delivered to customers. This process may take additional time,” a spokeswoman wrote to us yesterday.
The company also apologizes to the customers affected, but blames the airports and “a strike movement by certain teams in Paris” in the same breath.