It’s time for every airline to adopt and integrate Apple’s new AirTags in their luggage, which can help the airlines quickly locate their missing, lost, and delayed luggage.
According to the Department of Transportation, Domestic Airlines handled 470 million bags last year. Of those bags, they mishandled 2.7 million. Apple’s AirTags can help with mishandled baggage.
While the bags that were lost, delayed, or damaged are a tiny fraction of the total bags handled (0.57 percent), it doesn’t matter to those who didn’t have their bags and belongings for their vacation or business trip.
I’ve been a victim of baggage mishandling myself. Several years ago, my wife and I stood among a dozen passengers from our cruise in front of the baggage carousel in Barcelona, waiting fruitlessly. When the luggage carousel stopped soon after the other passengers from our flight left with their bags, we had an empty feeling.
Apple AirTags are a great tool to locate missing luggage. I wish I could have used them to locate my missing luggage in Barcelona.
Today, there is at least one tool that can help air travelers to locate lost, missing or delayed luggage. It’s the Apple AirTag. Here’s what happened to my wife and I without Apple AirTag help.
We put in our claim at the airline’s baggage claim office at the airport and went to our hotel. Then we went shopping, not for the beautiful things Spain offers, but for underwear, socks, shirts and pants.
We spoke to the airline that night. They said that they couldn’t find our luggage in Paris, where we connected to our Barcelona flight. They said that despite our explaining to them that our luggage had to be in Atlanta, where we boarded our flight to Paris within ten minutes after we landed. Our cruise line had arranged for the new flight because our flight to Barcelona left an hour before we landed in Atlanta. We were delayed by four hours due to severe thunderstorms across the Midwest and Northeast US.
No airline can transfer luggage from one flight to another in ten minutes.
We pleaded with the airline to look for our luggage in Atlanta. They said they’d search again in Paris.
It was only our cruise line’s outstanding service and insistence with the airline that resulted in the recovery of our luggage in time for our cruise. AirTag proof of location would have made their job easier.
The next day we went to the cruise line’s representative at our hotel to talk about the situation again. Shaking her head, she called the airline’s office at the Atlanta airport. She refused to get off the phone until Atlanta personnel searched the baggage room at the airport. Within two minutes, armed with our luggage tag numbers and description of the bags, they found our two bags and all of the others from our flight.
We were lucky. We got our bags the night before we left on our cruise through the outstanding effort of our cruise line, Celebrity.
If you’re not familiar with Apple AirTags specs, they’re 1.26 inch discs that are less than a third of an inch high and weigh less than a half ounce. They use a replaceable, non-rechargeable CR2032 lithium coin battery. They use Bluetooth plus NFC communication. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has stated that Apple AirTags can be safely stowed in luggage loaded into aircraft, saying,
“Luggage tracking devices powered by lithium metal cells that have 0.3 grams or less of lithium can be used on checked baggage. Apple AirTags meet this threshold (0.109 grams); other luggage tracking devices may not.”
Apple AirTags use an U1 ultra-wideband chip to send a low power, secure Bluetooth signal that can be detected by nearby Apple devices. The location is sent to the “Find My” network on Apple’s iCloud. When the AirTag owner logs into the “Find My” network, it will display their bag’s location with the AirTag in it on their “Find My” app map.
There are times when no matter what air travelers do to prevent it, luggage is mishandled and goes missing. That’s when electronic luggage tracking is essential.
There are many ways that air travelers can try to prevent their checked luggage from being delayed or lost, but they don’t always work. That’s why electronic tracking devices like Apple AirTags are important. They can rescue air travelers by locating their luggage almost anywhere in the world.
More than a few air traveler’s AirTag luggage stories have been in the news. A gentleman who flew with Air Canada from Montreal to Dublin reported that he was able to show the airline that his AirTagged bag was still in Canada. A British Airways passenger complained that while the airline said they tried to deliver her luggage to her in the U.K., her iPhone showed it was still in Florida. A maid of honor’s luggage never arrived on the carousel after flying home from a destination wedding in Portugal. She had an AirTag in the bag and located it at the airport where it was buried among other bags. Unfortunately, she had gate checked her carry-on, which contained no AirTag. It was still missing when she recovered her checked bag.
I know personally that Apple AirTags work. Not long ago, the airline changed the luggage carousel location at my destination airport, but my bag wasn’t there or at the first location. Using my iPhone, I located my AirTagged bag. It was sent to another carousel location by mistake along with other bags from my flight.
Until now, it often wasn’t easy to get the airlines to use Apple AirTag information from passengers about missing luggage. At many airlines, that will change soon.
Despite passengers regularly locating their lost bags with Apple AirTags, getting the airlines to listen to passengers when they were told where the missing bag was located was too often a struggle. One would think that the airlines would welcome help, but too often, that wasn’t the case. Fortunately, it appears that’s about to change.
Passengers will soon be able to share the location of their AirTag with airlines through a new feature on Apple devices called “Share Item Location,” enabling airlines to reunite travelers with their luggage. The new feature will be part of iOS 18.2 which is now in Beta testing.
This feature will only be great for air travelers if the airlines will be on board with it. Apparently, airlines are now ready to work with passengers and the new Apple AirTag location sharing system. Fifteen airlines have already announced that they will use the new Apple location sharing system. Among those airlines in the U.S. are Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.
So far, American Airlines isn’t participating in Apple’s AirTag location sharing program, unlike Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.
Noticeably absent from the list is American Airlines. That’s significant because American Airlines history of mishandling luggage is poor compared to other U.S. airlines. In 2023, American mishandled 0.82 bags per 100 checked. Delta Air Lines mishandled 0.49 bags per 100 checked. That’s a whopping difference and unlike American Airlines, Delta Airlines is taking part in the Apple AirTag location sharing program.
I highly recommend the use of Apple AirTags for travelers, if you use the Apple ecosystem, particularly air travelers. The use of AirTags with the new “Share Item Location” will make using AirTags better than ever. It’s time for every airline to integrate “Share Item Location” into their baggage tracking system. It’s good for the airlines and their passengers. In the U.S., it’s especially important for American Airlines to join Delta Air Lines and United Airlines in implementing the Apple location sharing program into their baggage tracking system.
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After many years working in corporate America as a chemical engineer, executive and eventually CFO of a multinational manufacturer, Ned founded a tech consulting company and later restarted NSL Photography, his photography business. Before entering the corporate world, Ned worked as a Public Health Engineer for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. As a well known corporate, travel and wildlife photographer, Ned travels the world writing about travel and photography, as well as running photography workshops, seminars and photowalks. Visit Ned’s Photography Blog and Galleries.