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Air Canada to fire handlers caught tossing bags

Ben Mutzabaugh
USA TODAY
In this file photo from March 23, 2012, Air Canada planes sit at Montreal's Pierre Trudeau International Airport.

Two Air Canada baggage handlers apparently will lose their jobs after a passenger captured video of them dropping fliers' bags off a 20-foot boarding platform while readying a flight for departure.

"The employees involved have been advised that their employment will be terminated pending the outcome of our investigation," Air Canada spokeswoman Angela Mah said to the Toronto Star in an e-mail Sunday night.

Passenger Dwayne Stewart captured the video at Toronto's Pearson International Airport while waiting for his Vancouver-bound flight to push back from the gate.

His video, which shows the handlers dropping the bags about 20 feet to a bin on the ground, created a stir across social media platforms and generated headlines in Canada and beyond.

Stewart posted the video on YouTube last Thursday under the title "Air Canada baggage fail 20 ft bag toss in Toronto." By Monday morning (April 21), it had been viewed more than 1 million times.

In addition to the unwanted publicity for Air Canada, CTV News says the video also "sparked anger among individuals who have criticized the airline for poor customer service."

Stewart tells CTV he saw at least a dozen bags dropped from the jetway.

"We just couldn't believe it kept happening," Stewart says to CTV. "We thought maybe the guy fell, or it was an accident, but no — it was a plan."

But the negative opinion wasn't unanimous, with some going easier on the handlers in the video.

"I don't see what the big deal is," one YouTube user is quoted as saying by the Star. "I mean they put padding in there to make sure there wasn't a hard impact … Why should these guys have to walk ALL the way down those stairs with a bag of luggage, just to go ALL the way back up and then go back down again, over and over?"

Regardless, Air Canada had apologized for the incident by Saturday as the topic picked up steam on social media.

"We apologize for the totally unacceptable mishandling of our passengers' baggage captured on video," spokeswoman Mah said to the CBC in a Saturday interview.

"We are in the process of identifying the employees involved whose employment will be terminated pending the outcome of our investigation," she said in that interview. "Their actions clearly contravened our standard baggage handling procedures which require gate-checked bags to be hand carried to the ramp."

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