The Strange Tale of a Wayward Bag

After a months-long odyssey involving police, endless wrangling with Air Canada, and an AirTag—an Apple gadget that can be tracked by other apple devices, thereby allowing users to locate lost items, even over considerable distances—a newlywed Canadian couple learned their lost bag had been donated to a charity.

While returning via Air Canada to their Ontario home after a summer honeymoon, Tom Wilson and Nakita Rees were instructed to recheck their luggage on a connecting flight in Montreal, Quebec. An article of the pair’s luggage was subsequently lost after a fashion so baffling and egregious that the couple was compelled to document the ordeal of its recovery via TikTok.

Upon returning safely to their home province of Ontario, the newlyweds—having prudently fortified their luggage with an Apple AirTag—discovered the missing bag was still in Montreal. Hopeful of its recovery, the couple filed a lost luggage report on the bag—which contained a number of Mr. Wilson’s valuables.

Rechecking the AirTag, the pair determined the missing bag—for reasons passing understanding—had been moved to a public storage facility in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. By dint of the AirTag, Wilson and Rees learned the bag had stopped at two homes while being relocated to Etobicoke.

After receiving compensation in the amount of $2,300—reportedly the legal maximum for lost luggage and, according to Rees, approximately one-third the value of the missing bag’s contents—the couple approached a manager at Toronto’s Pearson Airport (YYZ) for assistance with the bag and an explanation of why it had been relegated to a suburban Toronto public storage facility. The YYZ manager, however, had never heard of subject facility.

Vexed, the newlyweds reported their conundrum to the presiding police department, which dispatched officers to the public storage location and opened the appropriate unit. To the utter shock of all present, the storge unit contained what Wilson called “floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall luggage.”

It was through police sources that the couple learned their luggage had been donated to a nebulous charity that allegedly used the storage facility—despite the organization’s name remaining a mystery to Wilson and Rees to this very day.

An Air Canada appointed handler tasked with looking into the couple’s case searched through the approximately 1,200 bags jammed into the storage unit and, within 24-hours, had located Wilson’s bag. The article was delivered to the Wilson/Rees household months after it had been reported missing. According to Rees, the entirety of the bag’s contents were present and intact—including a bottle of wine.

On 23 January 2023, the pair—relieved but mystified still—reported via TikTok that the missing article of luggage had been returned to their rightful custody.

In a statement to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Air Canada set forth: "This customer travelled late in the summer at a time when all air carriers in Canada were still recovering from the COVID-related, systemic disruption of the entire air transport industry. One consequence was an elevated rate of baggage delays." The airline asserted it had worked diligently to locate Mr. Wilson’s lost luggage, stating: "In this particular case, the situation was compounded by the disconnection of the baggage tag at some point on the journey. Despite our best efforts, it was not possible for us to identify the bag's owner. It was designated as unclaimed, and we moved to compensate the customer."

Whether or not Air Canada will benefit from the dissemination of Wilson’s and Rees’s story remains unknown. What can be stated with some certainty, however, is that sheer numbers of AirTags likely to be purchased and insinuated into checked baggage by perspicacious air-travelers will presently exceed the maximum gross weight of smaller airliners.

FMI: www.aircanada.com/ca