My complaint:
1st. On November 25, 2022 TAP cancelled my December 11, 2022 flight e-ticket 0476790022750 Madrid to Toronto; no explanation was given for the cancellation and no alternative flight provided.
I was able to obtain an alternative flight on my own with TAP for December 14, 2022. This flight itirenary was very detrimental as it added an additional 12 hours of flight time compared to my December 11 as well as requiring me to spend the entire aftenoon and night at the airport awaiting check in opening at 4:00 am.
At Lisbon airport after having waited 10 hours inbetween flight and immediatedly prior to boarding the plane and right at the boarding gate I was aproached by aTAP female employee attending the boarding, this person informed me that I had to surrender my one and only piece of luggage – my carryon – the explanation given was that they did not have sufficient space in the plane for all the passenger carryons so they were selecting 18 passengers at ramdom and their carryon would be stored with the rest of the checked baggage in the plane’s cago hold. No amount of complaint or trying to reason with the attendant prevailed: I was assured that my carryon would be awaiting for me first in line as I exited the plane upon arrival at Toronto Pearson Int. which ofcourse was an outright lie.
My carryon was taken from me at the tarmac by the foot of the ladder used to ascend and enter the plane and placed with the rest of the other unfortunate carryons to be loaded into the plane’s baggage compartment without any protection from the rain coming down all the time.
I landed at Pearson Int. and there was no carryon waiting for me outside contrary to wat was promised by the TAP employee; had to go to the luggage collection area and wait for a substantial time before my carryon appeared at the discharge belt. This added more time to my already long and cumberson iterinary and to the schedule of the people waiting to pick me up, to say I was not pleased with TAP is an understatement. I left my home in Spain at 3pm December 13 and did not arrive at my home in Ontario Canada until 11:30pm December 14, 2022. all because of my unexplained flight cancellation.
The morning after arriving at my residence I proceeded to unpack my carryon and was greatly alarmed to discover that items had been removed from the carryon. To wit : Because the carryon was to be with me at all times and would not leave my sight I had not bothered to put any locks to prevent access by unwanted parties to the various parts of the carryon and for comfort sakewhile in the plane I had removed a security pouch commonly known as a fanny pack belt which goes around my waist and where I normally carry my documents and other small items which I carry while travelling. It was this pouch belt which had beem removed from the outside pocket of the carryon which not having a reason to was not locked. Being forced to relinquish my carryon was not anticipated nor planned.
Thankfully my passport because I had to go through custom was carried in my shirt pocket but a number of other items were lost. Along with the pouch, several credit cards were lost , these weere immediatedly put on hold and have been since updated and replaced by the respective credit companies; other than the inconvinience of replacement, no monetary loss occurred. I also had 8 lottery tickets for the Spanish Christmas lottery (the Fat one). I had recorded the numbers after purchasing the tichets and none of the numbers won anything on the Dec. 22 draw so again nothing of value lost. The other items in the pouch were a set of 3 keys for the main entrance, the garage and the gate to my house in Spain, these will be replaced from copies given to the person monitoring my house in my absence and I stimate the cost will be between 20 and 30 Euros.
Fortunately I did not suffer a great loss financially but I am very upset at the way in which TAP conducted itself with their custumer (me) , how is it possible that a plane does not have sufficient space to accomodate the carryons of all the passengers flying ,other than some one ignoring the regulations and other passangers with more than one carryon being allowed to board and store in overhead.
I usually fly 2 to 5 times every year and this coming March or early April I will be flying back to Madrid and it may be that I may decide to continue flying with TAP but you can be sure I will not surrender my carryon for any obscure reason.
Francisco Roncero Galan franciscor400481@gmail.com 519 722 0675
Suggested solution:
Do not ignore my concerns, correct procedure so that every traveler has sufficient space to store their carryon in the overheads, do not oversale the seats and then having to cancel custumers without explanation which is what I suspect happened with my cancellation.
Perhaps a gesture compensating me for all the trouble I was put throught
