Air Canada didn’t know how to treat Itzhak Perlman; do they know how to treat your gate-checked baggage? (Hint: No.)

It hasn’t been even a month since Air Canada had to apologize to world-famous (and disabled) violinist Itzhak Perlman for callously stranding him somewhere between his arrival gate and Customs with his violin, crutches, and luggage; it would appear that they treat their non-human cargo with equal disdain. A passenger on an Air Canada flight recently shot some video of their baggage handlers taking gate-checked luggage dropping the bags from the top of the jetway instead of walking them down to ground level:

They’ve been making apologies ever since. Here’s what’s on their Facebook page right now:

In light of a recent video posted to YouTube, we would like to apologize for the totally unacceptable mishandling of our passengers’ baggage captured on video. We are in the process of identifying the employees involved whose employment will be terminated pending the outcome of our investigation. Their actions clearly contravened our standard baggage handling procedures which require gate-checked bags to be hand carried to the ramp.

We take matters involving the protection of our customers’ personal possessions very seriously. The actions of these individuals are not representative of the vast majority of our employees who work hard every day to take care of our customers.

This is the sort of thing that fuels the joke slogan going around Canadian air traveller circles: “Air Canada: We’re not happy until you’re not happy.”

And that’s why I alway carry on my accordion, and raise hell whenever someone tries to make me gate-check it. I’ve got a couple of damaged squeezeboxes that say they’re not safe to check.