VANCOUVER – Abbotsford B.C. resident Dwayne Stewart was shocked to see Air Canada baggage handlers tossing luggage off jetway stairs Thursday rather than walking it down to the tarmac.
Stewart and a friend were on Air Canada flight 137 destined for Vancouver at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport when they witnessed the incident.
Passengers were asked to check their carry-on luggage due to overcrowding in the overhead bins and that is when Stewart started recording what was happening.
He estimated the drop to be about 20 feet from the top of the stairs to the bin below.
In the video Stewart can be heard saying “OK watch the bag” as one is tossed down. “You wouldn’t want to walk down the stairs,” he said.
“Sorry Air Canada, this is a fail.”
Stewart told Global News the first bag he saw that was dropped was a soft-sided fitness bag. “And then there was multiple bags dropped on top of that, then they would take those away, and in the video, the last bag is really heavy,” he said. “You can see the gentleman come out, and it’s a heavy bag, and then he actually prepares a landing pad for it and then they toss it off the end.”
Stewart said the men were throwing bags on top of bags.
“And these were bags that, I would presume, an expectation that whatever’s in that bag is somewhat precious to them, perhaps fragile. And then to have them tossed off the side of the airway, it was surprising to see.”
He said it was only him and his seatmate that seemed to notice what was happening, but when he posted it online it generated a huge response.
“I think it’s shocking,” he said. “I think it’s amazing that it would occur to people, that it would occur to the airline, the baggage handlers, that it was OK to toss bags on top of each other from a 20 foot height.”
Baggage handling services are contracted out by the airline and Air Canada said it is looking into what happened.
“We are extremely disappointed by the actions depicted in this video,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “This clearly goes against our standard baggage handling procedures which dictates that gate-checked bags are to be hand carried down to the ramp. An investigation into this has been launched, and we will be in contact with our customer.”
WATCH: Aaron McArthur’s report on the video:
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