Lost luggage could soon be one less headache during the hectic holiday travel season.
Last week, Apple announced “Share Item Location,” a new feature that lets users securely communicate an AirTag’s location to third parties — including more than a dozen airlines such as Delta Air Lines, United Airlines Inc., Air Canada and British Airways. Apple is also partnering with SITA, a company whose baggage-tracing system is used by more than 500 airlines and ground handlers at 2,800 airports worldwide.
It remains unclear how airlines will fold the new technology into their lost-baggage procedures.
“Apple’s new Share Item Location feature will help customers travel with even more confidence, knowing they have another way to access their bag’s precise location with AirTag or their Find My accessory of choice,” United Chief Customer Officer David Kinzelman said in a statement.
Apple said the shared-location feature lets customers recover misplaced items “easily and securely.” The feature is disabled when a traveler is reunited with their item and can be stopped by the owner at any time. It’s also set to automatically expire after seven days. The feature is now available with iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2 or macOS 15.2.
AirTags are small tracking devices that use Bluetooth technology to locate items they’re attached to. AirTags emit a Bluetooth signal that connects with nearby Apple devices. Unlike GPS trackers, AirTags rely on Apple’s Find My network, which uses a vast array of connected Apple devices to pinpoint their location.
AirTags are designed to not only track luggage but pets (device attached to collar), stolen bikes and white cars in massive parking lots.
Setting up an AirTag requires simply pulling a tab to activate it, holding it near an iPhone or iPad, and following prompts to assign the device an Apple ID. If the AirTag is already on, it can be set it up through the Find My app. Once connected, the AirTag’s location is locked in, and it can be found by sound. A Lost Mode feature offers extra security.
AirTags and Android Tile trackers have gained in popularity among frequent fliers following the Southwest Airlines holiday debacle in 2022 that left thousands of travelers without their belongings over Christmas and early 2023.
There have been some holdouts — such as Germany’s Lufthansa — that temporarily banned AirTags in 2022 before allowing their use days later.
But the appeal of AirTags and other bag-tracking devices are irresistible in an era of nonstop travel.
“We did this recently in Europe and it was great,” Nan Palmero, director of marketing for Office Furniture Liquidations in San Antonio, said in an email. “We used AirTags in our carry-on luggage and in each of our backpacks. The carry-ons were good to go for domestic carriers, but European budget carriers have smaller bag restrictions, so we paid to check those ahead of time to move around Europe.”
The use of tracking devices and better internal mechanisms among domestic carriers helped reduce mishandled baggage by 9% from 2022 to 2023. About 270,000 bags are lost, damaged or delayed each month.
Ten of the largest U.S. airlines made nearly $6.6 billion in bag fees in 2022, according to data from the Department of Transportation and an analysis by Business Insider. At the same time, they mishandled about 3 million bags.
