Savvy travelers have discovered in recent years one of the most useful in-flight tricks: using a Apple AirTag to keep track of checked baggage. The popularity of quarter-sized devices skyrocketed during the summer of 2022, when lost luggage was one of the weak points among many others travel disruptions.

There was, however, a small drawback: even if the aviators knew where to missing suitcase In other words, there was no formal way to share its exact location with the airline.

Until now.

As part of Apple’s latest software update, the tech giant just announced a revolutionary partnership to which 18 major airlines have already joined. With this new development, users will soon be able to share with airlines a secure link for locating an AirTag (and, therefore, a suitcase) through the Find My app on their Apple devices.

It’s a crucial measure that could alleviate one of air travel’s biggest problems by helping reunite travelers with lost luggage more quickly and efficiently.

“Find My is an essential tool for people around the world to track and find their belongings,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services, said in a statement. statement. “The Find My network and AirTag have proven to be a powerful combination for users while traveling, providing invaluable location information when luggage has been misplaced or mishandled. With Share Item Location, we’re excited to offer users a new way to easily share this information directly with third parties like airlines, while protecting their privacy.

When will it be operational?

The feature is currently available on iPhones running iOS 18.2 public beta testing. Later this year, the updated software will be free for all users with an iPhone XS or newer.

There is no official start date for when airlines will be able to display shared item locations. However, 18 carriers have already signed up to accept Find My Item locations as part of their process for locating mishandled bags. These include Aer Lingus, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Eurowings, Iberia, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Lufthansa, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines , Turkish Airlines, United Airlines. , Virgin Atlantic and Vueling. Other carriers are expected to be added.

“We have worked closely with Apple to integrate Share Location of Items into our baggage claim process and we are excited to make this feature available to our customers soon,” said David Kinzelman, United’s chief customer officer in a press release. “We know that many of our customers already travel with AirTag in their checked bags, and this feature will soon make it easier for them to share location information with us securely, helping our customer service agents work more efficiently and providing our customers greater security. peace of mind.

Security features in place

According to Apple, each link will be accessible by “a small number of people, and recipients will need to authenticate in order to view the link through an Apple account or partner email address.” This is one of the security measures, along with shared location being disabled as soon as the AirTag owner finds their bag (or after seven days, whichever comes first). Additionally, users can stop sharing location at any time.

Apple also announced that it would work with SITA, an airline technology company, to integrate the Share My Location feature into SITA’s system. world tracer. This baggage search and matching system is used by more than 500 airlines at approximately 2,800 airports around the world to help report lost bags and reunite them with their owners.

A promising solution for lost luggage

According to SITA, the statistics for mishandled bags, i.e. delayed, damaged, lost or stolen, have recently improved, with around 6.9 mishandled bags per 1,000 customers in 2023 (compared to a figure of 7 .6 in 2022, when some 26 million bags were mistreated global). Mishandling can occur for many reasons: a damaged or lost baggage tag, a technical malfunction, or human error, such as an agent typing the wrong airport code.

However, if travelers can locate their bags and share that information with airlines, which is the goal of Apple’s new initiative, it could help significantly reduce the number of lost bags, not to mention the stress travelers.

“Now that travelers can easily show airlines the precise location of lost bags, I would expect two things to happen: the average wait time to find a bag will decrease and sales of AirTags will increase, especially with the holidays coming up,” Scott Keyes, founder and chief flight expert of flight deals siteAfar said.

If you haven’t yet tried AirTags to keep fingerprints off your bags, now is the perfect time to get some. The devices, which typically cost $29 for a single device, are currently on sale. on Amazon for $19 each or $70 for a four-pack (normally $99).