With his bag checked in and passport in hand, Michael Pascale boarded an international flight in May 2022, oblivious to the real journey he was embarking on.

He was expecting to spend two weeks in Europe, then two months in the US.

He hadn’t planned on spending 18 months arguing with the airline over lost luggage.

Once he got started, he couldn’t stop.

“To say it was an obsession is probably not too far from the truth,” Mr Pascale said.

His battle involved two courts, one tribunal and one very satisfying compensation payment.

This is a story about the man who took on an airline and won.

What happened?

Mr Pascale’s travails revolve around his luggage, which he checked in at the airport then did not see again for several months.

He flew Qantas from Brisbane to Sydney, then SriLankan Airlines through Colombo to Paris, where the baggage carousel had nothing belonging to him.

“It was that situation of just watching it go round and round … and then it never shows up,” he said.

After filing a report, he started making daily, but fruitless, calls to Qantas.

With only the clothes on his back and one spare T-shirt, he had to do some shopping.

At this point it is worth noting Mr Pascale identifies as “frugal” and is not the kind of man who will replace his holiday attire if he expects his luggage to arrive soon.

Initially, he cut the legs off a pair of jeans he picked up at an op shop and acquired a pair of thongs for two Euro.

When Qantas told him it had located his bag back at Brisbane airport, Mr Pascale became hopeful, but no sooner had it been found, the bag went missing again.

In a stroke of bad luck, it was routed through London just as a technical issue disrupted the baggage system at Heathrow Airport, creating a sea of lost luggage.

While Mr Pascale splurged on some essentials at the French equivalent of Target, his luggage continued on its global tour.

After leaving the UK, it spent some time in Dubai, then returned to Australia, by which time its owner had started researching the rights of air passengers.

A ‘really inadequate’ system

Consumer advocates have long argued stories like Mr Pascale’s show the need to overhaul the system for dealing with passenger complaints and refunds.

Rosie Thomas from consumer advocacy group CHOICE said Australia needed a truly independent airline ombudsman.

“This should be fair, accessible, free and follow all of the principles that similar ombudsman schemes in other sectors like telecommunications and financial services use,” she said.

Ms Thomas said most of a passenger’s rights came from the terms and conditions of each airline.

“Each airline will have different rules and requirements that define what you’re entitled to when things don’t go to plan,” she said.

She said this left most passengers at the mercy of the airlines’ email inboxes.

Victoria Roy, a lawyer who specialises in travel disputes, said Australian passengers had fewer clear rights to compensation than travellers in Europe, the UK and Canada.

“Australia is certainly very far behind,” she said.

She is the spokesperson on travel law for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, which wants a passenger bill of rights to clarify passengers’ entitlements when their travel is disrupted, or luggage delayed.

The terms and conditions of his ticket was not the light reading Mr Pascale expected to consume on holiday, but when he discovered mention of the Montreal Convention, he was hooked.

The multilateral treaty signed in 1999 allows passengers to claim compensation if their bag has been missing for more than 21 days.

When he took this to Qantas, with a dollar figure for the items he had bought, that airline promptly said it was SriLankan Airlines’ problem because it had his bag last.

So, his ordeal continued.

“At this point, I’m in the US and I’m pretty livid because I don’t want to have to deal with this,” Mr Pascale said.

‘David against Goliath’

Advocates say passengers seeking compensation for loss or damage should first take it up with the airline, then approach the Airline Customer Advocate if they are not satisfied with the outcome.

CHOICE said the problem with this agency was that it could not make binding decisions.

“It is an airline-funded email forwarding service that is completely ineffectual when it comes to complaint handling,” Ms Thomas said.

She said many people did not pursue the compensation they were entitled to because they ended up suffering from “complaint fatigue”.

Victoria Roy said airlines would be held more accountable for losses and delays if it was easier for passengers to seek compensation.

She agreed many people simply gave up.

Not Mr Pascale.

At first, SriLankan Airlines told him he could not claim compensation because his bag had been found, but he was able to quote the fine print from the Montreal Convention’s 21-day rule, which allowed him to dispute that.

He also knew the treaty allowed him to claim the replacement value of the items in his bag to the value of about $2,700, so he kitted himself out with enough gear to see him through two months in the US.

Then he sent SriLankan Airlines the bill, but it had its own idea about what he should be paid.

They emailed him, offering $US150 ($228).

At the time the airline said the amount was offered as “full and final settlement,” but in a statement to the ABC, it said the offer was of “a temporary nature” and was intended so that he could get emergency supplies while his bag was being located. 

“We hope this unfortunate incident has not marred your impression of SriLankan Airlines,” the email to Mr Pascale seen by the ABC read.

What was not marred was Mr Pascale’s resolve.