American tourist Donna O’Connor’s luggage, which contains her parents’ ashes, has been returned to her home in Chicago.
O’Connor, 67, traveled to Ireland on June 30 to scatter some of her parents’ ashes on a family farm.
However, when she landed at Dublin Airport, her luggage, including the remains of her parents, Patricia and Robert Emmett O’Connor, was nowhere to be found.
She then spent seven days traveling back and forth from Dublin Airport in a desperate attempt to find her bag.
Ms. O’Connor said the woman who currently rents her home in Illinois said her bag was delivered there today.
She now has to wait for a relative to go to her home to confirm that her parents’ ashes are safe and intact.
“I’m so frustrated with Air Canada because I want them here, that’s why I brought them,” she told Independent.ie.
“Having it back in Illinois doesn’t help me; it (luggage) was ticketed to go to Dublin. I don’t understand why it didn’t go to Dublin. And even if it didn’t come with me, why not send it to Dublin?
“I think it’s there (Chicago) and I’ll be very, very grateful that my parents’ ashes are safe, but I still want them to be here with me.
“I have no idea where this bag has been in the last 12 days. I would have gone wherever it was if they had told me.”
Responsibility for lost baggage rests with individual airlines, not the Dublin Airport operator, DAA.
DAA said passengers who cannot locate their luggage should contact their airline or the airline’s ground handling company directly, using numbers available on the DAA’s website.
Ms. O’Connor said she received a voicemail from Air Canada yesterday saying they had found her bag and would be returning it to Chicago. She tried to contact the airline, but was unsuccessful.
She traveled to Ireland with her cat, which was then considered her carry-on. So she had to put her parents’ ashes in her checked bag.
She said: “I got a one-way call from them with no follow-up call or a number to call to contact them.
“It’s still a big disappointment to me that I don’t have them here with me and that I can’t do what I set out to do on this trip.
“It’s their job to get people and their belongings to their destination. That’s what we paid for and that’s the expectation and that’s the core of their business and they’ve only done half of it and caused a lot of trouble with it.”
Ms O’Connor plans to stay in Ireland but said the ordeal was “financially overwhelming” as she was forced to buy new clothes and supplies.
“The good result that could have come out would have been if Air Canada had called and said, ‘We’ve got your bag, where are you? We’ll get it to you,” she said.
“The last place I expected is that they would send it back to the point of departure.
“I plan to stay for a while; it’s not what i wanted. I just feel emotionally drained and the thought of going back into the chaos of travel now and complicating it with a pet with me just doesn’t have it in me.
“Now I’m as far from my parents’ ashes as ever. They have always been in my bedroom, this is just crazy.”
An Air Canada spokesperson told the Irish Independent on Saturday: “We are in direct contact with our customers, but we can tell you that this customer’s delayed baggage is on its way.
“The vast majority of customers arrive at their destination with their luggage.
“However, lately there have been more cases of delayed bags, and these and other challenges to the industry are a phenomenon seen around the world as the air transport system reawakens after Covid.
“One of the reasons is that more people travel and more bags. Second, the global operational environment has changed from pre-pandemic, especially the well-documented issues such as security and customs lines, aircraft held at gates unable to unload at airports, and restrictions on the number of flights through air traffic control. .
“All of these can disrupt airport operations, especially baggage handling and baggage handling.”
Independent.ie has contacted Air Canada for further comment.