An American TikToker and competitive triathlete is upset after his $16,000 bike went missing during an Air Canada flight from Europe to Montreal last week.
Noel Mulkey competed in the IRONMAN World Championships in Nice, France, on Sept. 10 and brought his TREK bike with him for the event.
The 28-year-old said the airline lost the pricey bike and he and his mom have been on the phone for the past six days trying to find out why it didn’t make it on the Sept. 12 flight. Frustrated by a lack of answers after multiple calls, he said he posted videos about the ordeal for his 1.5 million TikTok followers to put pressure on Canada’s largest airline to locate his bike. The videos have more than 380,000 views combined.
The bike was packed in a large, green storage box that he takes with him on long-haul flights around the world, making the disappearance all the more confusing, he said.
“How do you miss that? It’s a giant, green box,” he said in an interview on Monday.
He said he stayed in Nice for a few extra days of vacation after the Sept. 10 competition, and that his parents checked the green box for him when they returned home before him.
The bike box that carries Noel Mulkey’s $16,000 bike. (Submitted photo)
After calling Air Canada customer service, he had high hopes that he would get the bike delivered on Monday. Air Canada gave him a tracking number for a FedEx delivery, but when it arrived at his home, it was just the racing wheels of the bike, which he packed separately. The bike frame and two training wheels that are in the green box haven’t been returned.
“Now, we’re really mad because we thought that it was gonna show up, it was resolved,” he said, adding that calling Air Canada for help has been an uphill battle.
“We call them and they’ll kind of give us the runaround. They’ll say we’re gonna go through the emails, they put us on hold and then on hold, [the call] disconnects. So we’ll be on hold for, like, an hour or whatever and then disconnects, and then we have to go through the whole process again,” he explained.
Noel Mulkey says Air Canada lost his $16,000 bike on a flight from Nice, France to Montreal on Sept. 12, 2023. (Submitted photo)
CTV News reached out to Air Canada for comment. In an email sent Monday evening, the airline said the bike arrived in Montreal “and is set to be delivered to the customer shortly.”
“We regret the delay, however there were other carriers involved transporting it. We will follow up with the customer directly,” the company said.
Reached again late Monday, Mulkey said he still hadn’t heard from the airline.
“I have not seen anything and we didn’t get a call. And my reaction is I don’t understand why that was so difficult, like the last five days to let us know where it is. And they let you guys know instantly,” he said.
Noel Mulkey brought his bike to France to compete in the IRONMAN World Championships. (Submitted photo)
There has been no shortage of social media posts and news stories about complaints from passengers regarding Canadian airlines over the past several months about everything from lost luggage, to flight delays, and cancellations. One woman said she was asked to sit on a vomit-covered seat on an Air Canada flight(opens in a new tab) from Las Vegas to Montreal last month.
Mulkey said he travels the globe often as an athlete and has lost his bike once on a Qantas flight, but he got it back within a few days.
“This is my job … I have flown all over the world and never had an experience like this with any airline ever. Just this year alone, I’ve been to Africa, Australia, Europe. I’ve been with this bike, and I’ve never had a problem,” he said.
His mother, Karen Mulkey, said she was told by an Air Canada employee earlier in the day on Monday that the bike box was actually still in Nice, after being told otherwise previously.
“I’ve been quite frustrated. I mean, it’s my son’s livelihood … it’s not a black suitcase. It’s a big, green box. And it’s just sitting there, and I can’t get help from either end to know for sure, like, confirmation of what’s going to happen next,” she said.
Mulkey said he usually puts an AirTag — a battery-operated Bluetooth tracking device made by Apple — into the bike box so that he could track its location in case it gets lost, but this time he forgot to do it.
“It didn’t make it into the bike bag,” he said, “and it’s the time we needed it.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The bike box that carries Noel Mulkey’s $16,000 bike. (Submitted photo)
Noel Mulkey says Air Canada lost his $16,000 bike on a flight from Nice, France to Montreal on Sept. 12, 2023. (Submitted photo)
Noel Mulkey brought his bike to France to compete in the IRONMAN World Championships. (Submitted photo)
