B.C. tribunal orders Flair Airlines to compensate traveller for lost jewellery

B.C.’s Civil Resolution Tribunal has ordered Flair Airlines to pay Henriette Tams $606.18 after jewellery went missing from her checked bag on a February 2024 flight from Mexico to Vancouver.

Tribunal member Amanda Binnie awarded Tams $500 for the lost items, plus $38.68 in pre-judgment interest and $67.50 in CRT fees. Tams said she discovered the morning after her late-night arrival that her bag had been repacked and that a jewellery pouch was missing.

She said the pouch held nine items valued from $15 to $535.24, for a total claimed value of $868.73. She did not provide receipts or other documents establishing their value. Tams initially reported the loss by text and later through Flair’s website. The decision says Flair acknowledged the claim and apologized, but denied it because she had not supplied an itemized list or receipts.

Flair argued that Tams had not provided supporting evidence that it was responsible. It also said its international tariff did not permit jewellery in checked baggage and required it to be carried on board, but it did not submit a copy of the tariff or evidence that it had given Tams that warning before the flight.

Binnie found that Tams’s baggage tag established the bag was registered and that Flair did not specifically dispute the items went missing while the baggage was in its care. Under the Carriage by Air Act and the Montreal Convention, airlines are liable for the loss of registered baggage while it is in their care.

Because the jewellery’s actual value was not established, Binnie applied the legal principle of betterment, which prevents compensation that would leave a claimant with a replacement of greater value than the lost item. She found $500 was an appropriate award.