Huh. I don't check luggage much and, at least with United, their checked baggage app tracking system seems pretty good. But I've been tossing in an AirTag on the few occasions I've checked luggage in the past year or so and it seems to work pretty well as a backup tracker.
I check luggage pretty often, and these days I always chuck a Tile into every bag. With all the logistical disruptions at airports of late, waiting at baggage claim is a lot less nerve-wracking when I can see that my bags pinged on the tarmac five minutes ago.
I agree with this. Mostly because I had a poor experience with one of their gate agents recently. They forced me to check my hand luggage because it was 2kg overweight. They don't uniformly enforce the hand luggage weight limit, their employees get to pick and choose passengers at the gate. The gate agent scoffed at me putting an AirTag in the bag that they were making me check.
Because it’s a scam. They pick “enforcement” targets by guessing who seems likely to pay.
I’ve never been charged when traveling solo. But with family or co-workers they have a shot at the “oh, just pay it, we have a plane to catch” gambit. I know their tricks and always refuse. Then I lay the bag down and start rifling through it like Yoda in Luke’s lunchbox.
The long line of passengers who think they will miss their flight are staring daggers at me. My travel companions are attempting to activate their invisibility cloaks. I give not one f because it is a scam.
I am helping everyone by showing it is a scam. Half the time the agent backs down. The other times I can usually throw a few heavier things into a spare duffel bag. F that s.
OK, I guess I'll...move a few things from there into another bag that is going onto the same flight, possibly the bag of someone I'm traveling with. Now you have reduced the flying weight of the plane by exactly 0 grams and made everyone a few percent more angry / delayed / stressed out.
It's not just about the weight on the plane. It's about the equipment and people who move the bags around. Clearly, people have some upper limit they need to be expected to lift as baggage handlers.
No, it was a checked bag that was barely over the limit. There’s a penalty fee and the bag is tagged “heavy” so the handlers are aware. Some high-mile fliers get an extra weight fee exemption. There’s another limit for max weight.
You can see out the window of the plane the way handlers drag and drop even much lighter bags and crates, even when tagged “fragile”, how much the weight matters and how much they give a s. I have video. The jars survived. Double-boxing ftw.
If we could produce some kind of internal memo or training guide that proved this, would that be enough to result in some consequences in a court of law?
Hmmm, so could they require that all handlers turn off the functionality on their phones that enables this concept to work? Thereby reducing the pings or hits all together?
There could be non-cynical motives for airlines not to want customers to be able to track their baggage. Getting weird enquiries about whether bags have been stolen because they are in some unexpected non-airport location, when it's just a place the airline uses to handle delayed baggage, is probably troublesome for them.
It doesn't seem as if "We've rerouted your luggage to a different airport and you'll get it at some point" should be a particular secret of the airline.
Yeah, but the solution to this is to proactively communicate the status of bags to customers. If you're getting weird inquiries because you're being opaque about something important to a customer, who is confused, it's your own fault if that's troublesome.
This. I get a notification when it gets loaded and unloaded from a plane, and I can view the exact times it was accepted, got on a plane, got off the plane, and if it's in the right airport or not.
They're scanned every step of the way anyway. It's absolutely ridiculous for a carrier to come back with "we don't know where your bag is". Especially in 2022.
Moving my belongings to an off-site location is _precisely_ the sort of thing I'd want to be notified of, and if the airline doesn't feel that I deserve to know that, ahh, well. That would be problematic.
I appreciate that you're trying to find alternate explanations, and it's my first impulse to do the same, but I've been racking my brain and I just can't come up with any. This one isn't better, it's worse.
Is it really a “weird inquiry” for someone to wonder why their bags aren’t being delivered?
If the bags aren’t being delivered, that’s troublesome for the owner of the bags. And a version of “troublesome” I find more sympathy for compared to the burden on poor ol’ massive airline companies having to listen to their customers when they lose their property.
How are they even going to know if there is an airtag in someone's luggage? Are they particularly obvious on an x-ray or is there some kind of specialised detector?
Well, if they are transmitting, at least in theory it would be possible to detect that transmission. Though I would be kind of surprised if they actually put much effort into actually enforcing it.
If they want to defeat tracking, they can enforce their baggage employees not to bring iPhones to work. Of course eventually on the plane, the luggage will be like ten feet below hundreds of people who might have an iPhone!
It's an interesting question. Maybe it's just scare tactics. The battery that goes in an AirTag is the same as in a lot of wristwatches and I expect it would look like a wristwatch via x-ray. And it is exactly as dangerous as such a thing, which it to say: not.
>The battery that goes in an AirTag is the same as in a lot of wristwatches and I expect it would look like a wristwatch via x-ray.
If it's just scare tactics then the similarity to watches is irrelevant. However, if for whatever reason they want to crack down on it, it being similar to wristwatches isn't going to stop them. I suspect most wristwatches are kept with the person rather than in checked luggage, and that if were actually determined they could demand a search of your luggage if they spot anything that remotely looks like an airtag on x-ray.
> This is specifically because of the transmission function. Lufthansa claims that the transmission function needs to be turned off during flight when in checked luggage, just as is required for cell phones, laptops, etc.
While this is negligible and I can see a lot of people saying "Well who cares it's just one" if you imagine a lot of interference from a lot of baggage with them on a flight.. I haven't tested, but personally I would prefer to be safer rather than sorry.
It's also worth noting this is a de-facto rule for US domestic flights too. All carriers, switching to airplane mode is a federal requirement on U.S. domestic flights.
I wonder if cargo bays could have a mesh or paint that would act as a faraday cage. I will admit that I suspected at first glance that this was to avoid accountability for luggage that is lost.
That's what I'd assumed, but I'm trying to use the most charitable interpretation of what their concern might be. I don't think it's an EM issue -at all-. I think it may be an accountability issue and the inconvenience of having to fly back individual parcels for no added profit in the face of proof.
It’s not reasonable to implement something like that. Any gap would need to be <0.5cm in size in order for it to work on a 2.4GHz Bluetooth signal.
Considering that half of the passengers are likely forgetting to put their device in airplane mode - and they’re all using Bluetooth headphones, there is effectively zero risk to the airplane.
> How many people do you think actually do this. (I mostly do, when I remember.)
I'm EU based and not flying every day but any flight at all it's always in airplane mode. It's like a seatbelt on a car for me, it's just done.
I'm biased but I would like to believe most people remember,
That is almost certainly optimistic but given that planes are not falling out of the air or reporting a lot of electronic interference issues it's probably OK as things stand.
I'd be a little surprised if 50% of cell phone owners even know how to turn on Airplane Mode.
Yes, I know it's usually right there on a screen you'd think they'd look at pretty often.
I stand by that.
Beyond that, several on every flight who might do it, will forget to, and several more just don't give a fuck. Despite this I've never once seen anyone get hassled over it.
How would attendants even know to hassle someone. Yes, there are some people who pay attention to the announcement and some others who want to preserve their battery. But, yeah, I'm guessing well south of 50% turn on airline mode at least in the US--and I'd probably be a bit surprised if Europe were that different. Certainly no one makes a show of caring all that much these days as they did when turning off cellphones was such a big deal at takeoff.
AFAIK you are still allowed to use Bluetooth and wifi in all phases of flight which is what the AirTag uses (ble).
If you aren’t then someone should tell United because I stayed connected to their network watching a movie all the way from cruise altitude to the gate.
These things are bluetooth at only 2.8 mw UWB in the GHz range[1]. Anything with that power at that band in an aluminum walled cargo hold is probably nil: kitchen foil attenuates 80 dB over 100 Mhz [2] and bulkheads are much thicker.
I don't put my stuff in airplane mode, and I travel with a cell phone, an iPad w/ cellular, and my laptop. And my friends do the same. Sometimes we'll fly together.
So I know that doesn't do anything. I bet if I put one of these in airplane mode, I've won enough RF budget for everyone to have Airtags on
what a joke, I guess that's one way to deal with their terrible luggage handling..
I've been now waiting since a flight on August 20th to receive my "lost" luggage from them. I guess policy like this is easier than fixing the actual issue.
The only update I've gotten is this email two weeks ago, their hotline and website are completely useless. Via DeepL
> Good day,
> We apologize that you have not yet received your luggage and for the inconvenience this has caused. We regret that we are currently unable to meet our standards for a smooth travel experience.
> Why are there delays?
> There are currently massive logistical and personnel failures and bottlenecks worldwide, which are delaying baggage handling in particular. The world of flying is highly interconnected. We are dependent on our global partners here and are thus confronted with numerous challenges.
> We are working hard to ensure that all delayed baggage is delivered within the coming weeks.
> If you would like to check the baggage status yourself, please use the baggage status page only. Our telephone service centers will not be able to assist with any questions regarding your baggage.
luggage this summer in europe has been a mess. air france lost my bag in paris on june 12 and has neglected to compensate me or return it. no way to get a hold of anyone who can do anything either-- left me wishing i had put an airtag in there myself.
You’d think they’re stuck in a luggage area and airtags would help you hasten them getting to you? Not sure how it’d solve a logistics problem that is not yours but the airline’s.
Thinking further I think the airlines should stick their own air tags on luggage while in transit and get it back when customer picks up their luggage (could be a deposit based system). This would help them automatically track all luggage.
We could create a affiliated but a 3rd party bounty hunter business :)
Ok, I lost my luggage in Brussels, provide the "bounty hunter" my information (i.e., location), give them a legal authorization, and they go claim my baggage from where it is stuck, and help it move to where it needs to be.
Of course it will not be straightforward, but if we can make it happen with one airline, maybe others will follow.
Of course the name will not be a bounty hunter service, but something that is more marketing driven.
Usually the handling of luggage is not by air france (or other carrier), it is the specific airport personnel, so called "ground-services".
Most airports cut down personnel due to Covid-19 and when the amount of flights quickly ramped up to previous (or possibly higher than before) levels couldn't manage (or did not want) to find/hire/re-hire enough personnel.
When this happens, the luggage is normally stored in a hangar or other warehouse at the airport, far from passenger traffic, and with access reserved to these ground service personnel, so the most you would get with an airtag (if any of the personnel has an iPhone) is that your luggage still exists in a place which you cannot have access to, no way to collect it.
There is no way that people are going to stop putting AirTags in their luggage, at least not while airlines are still constantly losing luggage and fighting people on reimbursement.
I do see how they'd find it bothersome. Imagine what it must be like that the situation before was: "Oh no my baggage is lost!" "Oooh that's rough! We'll let ya know!" then nothing.
Where now what it might be like is: "Oh no my baggage is lost at XYZ airport at your terminal" and that accountability is somewhat forced now because they can't just say it wasn't found or it is 'in transit' when it really isn't.
You might get money for your troubles if your flight or luggage is delayed. For luggage being lost the maximum liability is $3,800 for domestic flights and about $1,800 for international flights
In theory yes, but in practice it could easily cost you more to deal with the airline and it might well be that you don’t have the receipts anymore.
With another European airline I recently waited exactly one day less than the three weeks required for them to deliver a child seat. That’s almost three weeks of not having one to safely transport my child, no support or compensation. Since I was returning to my country of residence the credit card company also didn’t refund.
Your damages are what you had to spend on all the new items you had to buy for your trip, to replace the items they failed to deliver. You buy new clothes (etc), keep the receipts, and turn those in for reimbursement. At least this is how it worked a decade ago when my luggage was "lost" for a US domestic flight.
In my case, I think they deliberately bumped my bag for paying cargo, because they saw my billing address was near the destination airport and assumed I would be fine "at home". They didn't know I was going to a wedding, and that said wedding was several hours drive away, so delivering my bag a day late to the destination airport wouldn't end the problem. They still paid out though.
aobdev's idea of reimbursement doesn't work in either direction. The price you paid for something is only weakly connected to the thing's current value. But your damages are equal to whatever the current value is. If you bought a painting for $20 and it's appreciated to $15,000, you're owed $15,000 when someone destroys it. If you bought a suit for $2,000 and it's more moth-hole than cloth and it's been through a few paintball fights, you're not owed $2,000 when someone destroys it.
There’s an easy solution: the airline automatically owes the maximum amount. This would save everyone much time and put some burden back with the airliner (by potentially paying more than the customer had, though at around USD 1800 it should be quite even, especially once you consider the time spent to get your money back)
You already need to insure higher values anyway if you want to be entitled to a reimbursement, so this would set a nice minimum that encourages customer friendly behavior.
At least in the US they have to repay you for items purchased to temporarily replace items in delayed luggage- subject to reasonable costs and a total limit.
They won't compensate you unless the luggage hasn't been delivered within three weeks. Even then they'll put up a battle and make you go through a bunch of forms and hotlines, request receipts that you might not have anymore etc.
For a baby car seat, probably not worth it. For other things it might be but the receipt is missing etc.
At the end it's a damage you have to face for them not doing their job right.
You're thinking of the frequent flyer programs. An airline, via its FF program, is a proprietary central bank that sometimes flies people (and occasionally, even their luggage!) from A to B.
Didn’t really understand that until I read an article about it.
The frequent flyer program is oftentimes worth more than the airline, and it’s a currency with no rules where the airline can do pretty much whatever they want with its value. It’s insane.
How is it bothersome? People are doing their job and telling them where the bag is. They should be happy when customers go the extra mile to fix their broken system.
FWIW I showed an AA baggage customer service rep the location of my bag (within 200ft of where we were standing), the response I got was, “that’s nice, we’ll get you your bag when we get you your bag” - so while it’s nice to know where your bag is, the airlines will continue to not care until there are financial consequences for not delivering as promised.
AA is the worst. I would be here all day if I were to explain all the things they did on a single flight, NY to Akron. I rented a car and drove home, so not to expose myself to that again. Have not flown AA since.
I get that it's inconvenient and could be used nefariously. I'm not sure what kinds of worker protections airline staff have in Europe, but I can see why it might be problematic that I'm tracking the employee as they drive their van full of lost luggage to my hotel.
Still, it's my stuff, so I'm going to keep putting AirTags in every bag I travel with. I'm sorry, but.. what are they going to do? Ban me from the airline?
Look at the actual cases, though. You had to be really aggro to get the permaban instead of just getting walked off the flight with a warning. IMHO, they were not aggressive enough.
I suspect I'm misreading your comment. You say "they run near empty flights often", which is not true based on current load factor data, at least in the US[1]; it's as high as ever.
But you also say "it's a sellers market" which would imply high demand where they can afford to lose a few passengers (which would be true based on basic economics). So I suspect this is what you intended to say, unless I'm really misunderstanding something.
Why do you think I think I'm special? I simply think we're all humans, with basic rights, such as being able to keep tabs on our personal property, within reason-- which, surely, a small, light, unobtrusive tracker that has no known problematic failure modes, and which contains a battery that is within the checked baggage limits comports with?
I made no suggestion that I should be able to shirk the rules while everyone else deserves to get caught.
You're welcome to point and laugh at me if Lufthansa bans me and I have to stop putting AirTags in my bags so as not to be banned by other airlines, should they choose to adopt such an anti-consumer stance as well.
I have no real issue with taking a calculated risk, the kinds of calculated risks we take all day every day. Surely you don't carefully read the terms of carriage on every airline ticket you purchase. I know I don't. I trust that the market will more or less treat us reasonably, and if one vendor does not, I can find another which does.
>You generally are not allowed to carry lithium batteries in checked baggage
Mind linking to the relevant regulations that say that? The ones that I turned up[1] says that batteries are fine as long as they're in an installed device.
You generally are not allowed to carry lithium batteries in checked baggage. So your phone's lithium battery is not a problem as long as it's in your pocket.
This is absolutely not true – guidelines from e.g. FAA and IATA are extremely clear that devices are permitted in both checked and carry-on baggage. There are some restrictions around bare cells, e-cigarettes etc. but for the most part these devices are no problem.
The battery in an AirTag is a standard CR2032 button cell, such as you'll find in thermometers, car keys, or similar small devices.
Lithium batteries in checked luggage are limited to 0.3g. A CR2032 has 0.1g.
It cannot start a fire while in the AirTag any more than your car keys can.
I am not sure what's with the tone of this comment, it seems a lot like a teacher who once told me I'd never be able to get a job if I put my feet on my desk, but, here I am.
(26) Baggage equipped with lithium battery(ies) must be carried as carry-on baggage unless the battery(ies) is removed from the baggage. Removed battery(ies) must be carried in accordance with the provision for spare batteries prescribed in paragraph (a)(18) of this section. The provisions of this paragraph do not apply to baggage equipped with lithium batteries not exceeding:
(i) For lithium metal batteries, a lithium content of 0.3 grams; or
(ii) For lithium ion batteries, a Watt-hour rating of 2.7 Wh.
a cr2032 is an example of a "lithium primary cell" meaning it's not rechargable, whereas "lithium ion" is rechargeable https://www.mpoweruk.com/lithiumP.htm
cr2032 are lithium, but not usually the same chemistry as rechargeable lithium ion. (side note, some cr2032 cells for use as battery backup for realtime clocks are actually rechargeable, which is pretty cool) However, as the sibling comment says, they are allowed because there is a threshold below which batteries are allowed.
1. you could always use the "oops, must have forgotten the airtag from my last trip :^)" excuse
2. The relevant authorities[1][2] seem to say that batteries in checked luggage is fine as long as it's in install equipment, so you're not violating any regulations that would get you reported.
I don’t see why it’s problematic to see where your bag is. The employee isn’t driving from their home with your luggage- and if they were, there are bigger problems.
You have a point where he may make multiple stops which may include the personal addresses of folks also on your flight. But I can’t imagine you have enough ability to match a person with an address this way.
> at least not while airlines are still constantly losing luggage
Does that actually happen to people still? I thought it was just a 90s meme. I get a push notification every time they move my bag anywhere. 'Accepted into the system', 'loaded onto the plane', 'unloaded off the plane', 'popped out at the carousel'. Seems pretty bullet proof these days.
American Airlines self-reported a baggage mishandling rate just short of 1% this year. That seems really high to be honest, when you consider that most planes have a minimum of 150 passengers.
2022 was an anomalous year since the airlines ramped up their schedules without having support staff at the airports to handle it. The statistics seem to indicate a tripling of lost luggage rates.
My math professor is flying once a month to Europe from the US for the past 20 years. He told me about this statistic he built from his trip history and I thought he was exaggerating.
On my 10th trans-Atlantic trip of course I lost my luggage.
So on a typical 747 flight 40 people will have their luggage lost when we get to the reclaim? That seems really improbably high. How come I don't see hundreds of people standing around getting angry at the belt?
At Heathrow, it'd mean 20,000+ people a day with lost luggage (if they all checked luggage). You'd need more than the entire taxi fleet of London to get their luggage to their hotels.
They say a 3 month search, but if you read around you’ll see 5+ days and your bag is basically gone. They say .03% of all checked bags end up lost and then unclaimed. How many must get lost to reach that unclaimed number?
It could be as high as 10% if you have a connecting flight, maybe? I’ve been fortunate enough to always fly direct and never had any lost baggage. I’ve always assumed direct is fine, it’s once you start transferring loads across different flights and codeshare carriers it starts to do awry.
Of course - but it's an indication of the ludicrous scale. How many vehicles do they use to move these 20,000 bags around to London hotels? Even if it's each one doing 20 bags a day do they have a like a fleet of thousand vans or something just for moving lost bags? Just for Heathrow?
I was in Greece once dealing with lost luggage. The airline threw it on a ferry and told me to run on and look/grab my bag when it got to the island I was on. I guess that’s some effort lol
And, this time I had AirTags in my bags which ended up being super useful for tracking.
It's been a big issue in the UK for the last few months, as airports struggled to find enough baggage handlers. So luggage was getting left all over, massive buildups, effectively "lost" until they have enough manpower to process it all.
It happens and just like the meme they drive it hours to you once found, even across states. Just happened my sister and brother in law who had trained to another state by the time theirs was found.
> at least not while airlines are still constantly losing luggage and fighting people on reimbursement.
Hah, if you're in the United States you should be fine. Federal law forces the airlines to reimburse you, even for just delayed baggage [0].
Last year my bag was delayed a few days on a trip to the mountains. My airline paid the cost to replace all of the clothing and other material in my bag. I think it ended up being ~$2100 worth. I bought items comparable to what I had brought, e.g. a lot of high-quality thermal clothing, some board games, chargers, etc, and I got to keep all of it.
I’ve got a friend who is doing a lot of travel to Russia due to her father having some medical problems, so I bought her an AirTag for her luggage.
On her first flight home, she missed her flight, but her luggage “made it.” She was able to track the bag all the way to the American West Coast, and apparently the workers at the airport even found it helpful in the “last mile” of retrieving the bag.
On her second flight, Lufthansa lost the bag on a flight to Helsinki. They were apparently huge dcks about it, but again she was able to accurately track and eventually retrieve it.
AirTags are one of those devices that really surpass their advertised usefulness. I’m encouraging everyone I know who travels to get some.
I do wonder about the workers who must be getting those automated “yo a tracker is following you” anti-stalking messages on their iPhones, though.
If transmissions truly are a problem, I would hope they’d protect passengers and vehicles (e.g. faraday cage luggage compartments) rather than hoping customers do not leave dangerous devices such as AirTags in their luggage.
TBH, that seems the more reasonable way of dealing with it. If they are truly worried about transmissions while in flight, then yeah do that. Once the luggage is on the ground and unloaded the AirTags will still work. Seems like a win win for everyone — if what they say about in flight transmissions is the real reason.
They are just tired of people with lost luggage making their staff go find it… there is absolutely zero risk, the amount of energy involved is minuscule.
NFC has a range of around 5cm and has nothing to do with how AirTags work for tracking purposes. Do you really think AirTags only update their location when someone with an iPhone comes over to intentionally scan it?
Even if you bury the AirTag in the middle of the luggage, it will still be trackable, but NFC will absolutely not come even close to reaching it.
They’re not going to have off the shelf equipment capable of locating an AirTag quickly enough to matter even if they can tell there are AirTags somewhere in the general vicinity of the luggage area. That’s just not how any of this works.
Whether the rule itself is ridiculous or not, as others have pointed out, the main benefit seems to be that they can tell customers to stop bothering them about luggage that they’ve lost.
I put an airtag on the inside pocket of my luggage, and am having no luck scanning it from the outside. It seems unlikely this will work. I can still find it with my iphone though.
Yeah but security scanners don't have NFC readers built into them, and even if they did, the range is too short to be useful the way scanners are built.
You don't need to reveal your AirTag to report a lost bag.
And carrying an AirTag, even if it were against their rules, does not somehow absolve them of their duty to return the bag (and/or pay for the lost luggage).
This is going to have the opposite of their intended effect. People are now going to be more interested than ever in AirTags precisely for luggages thanks to them.
I land, and before I check my texts I check for my bags.
They have almost always already been reported to the find my network and I have peace of mind.
Even at the baggage carousels. I just activate “Find” and it tells me if my bag is “near by” and rarely it’ll even give me the arrow pointing at my luggage.
I didn’t even realize that I was previously micro-stressing about this stuff. But I can definitely tell the change I’ve had in mental state with an AirTag in my luggage.
It's seriously such an underrated technology. The fact that there are billions of devices spread out all over the world that can suddenly spring into action to precisely locate my item any time is so crazy to think about. All for a $29 one-time purchase. And I get the sense most people don't even know this exists.
Agree! When AirTags were announced I immediately bought 4 just for luggage tracking. The first trip I used them on our bags were lost. As we took off from Boston, I could see our bags were still on the other side of the airport. Since I already knew the bags were lost when we landed, we could go right to the baggage person. I was able to tell the person right where they were which sped the process up. Then, when they were finally delivered, the AirTags saved a bunch of time/stress knowing when/where to meet the delivery.
Given the top comment I'm not sure this had an intended effect. They were asked a question and quoted the relevant ICAO rules. What were you expecting them to do? Urge their customers to break the law?
“ Lufthansa claims that the transmission function needs to be turned off during flight when in checked luggage, just as is required for cell phones, laptops, etc.”
On my phone, turning on airplane mode seems to disable the cell and wifi radios (with wifi able to be toggled back on) but Bluetooth defaults to staying on.
It's a bullshit excuse and they know it. Lufthansa even has on-board WiFi on their planes. How are you going to use it if your laptop is supposed to have "transmission function" turned off?
They just don't want people to have proof they've lost their luggage.
Yeah that is... a non argument by Lufthansa -- i will be polite. (Resources: Here is for FAA, EU ruling is similar: https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/ped/ — check the FAQ also.)
They technically can -— the best kind of can I guess —- but it is not in the spirit of course of ILS interference (@108-112 MHz) with Bluetooth at 2.45 GHz and extremely low range. Hell the pilot is likely to have their iPad with Bluetooth on during all plane operations.
FAA expects to be communicating with mature individuals and entities and not this in their guidelines.
With the same thinking they can ban pacemakers and all cordless headphones, and …breathing. Good luck to Lufthansa. They just declared their baggage handling sucks.
It also sounds incredibly dumb when you think about how checked luggage gets scanned and searched. Isn't it typically after you've dropped it off with airline staff and have walked away towards a terminal gate? And when they find an airtag in checked luggage, how can they tell by looking at the airtag itself if "transmission function" has been turned off???
It seems to me they either have to throw away all airtags they find in luggage, or they have to check everyones' phones inside the airplane before they take off, or they're just bluffing.
I have no doubt that they'll do exactly this. They'll likely stick them into an RF-blocking pouch first, then destroy them all. You won't get it back, you won't get any compensation, and they'll point to their policies as to why.
You’re aiming to project maximum evil. While emotionally satisfying, it does not usually have good predictive powers. What you should be doing is to predict maximum laziness instead. As in, they will probably only destroy airtags inside a particular luggage when they know that the luggage is already lost and it would be embarrasing for them if its location was known.
But it records last known position. Logically they should put it in some else's luggage that is being picked up, thereby sending you on a wild goose chase.
Apple could add a pressure sensor and disable transmission while in the air. Yes, might be not working for Tahoe or Mexico City but work in most places.
Why would doing that be in Apple's interest? Also, consider that the air pressure in airline cabins is about the same as it is on the ground in Santa Fe, NM.
Huh, I'd have assumed (and remembered?) that airplane mode turned off all transmission, but I suppose with the huge increase in Bluetooth headphones that would be quite inconvenient, so maybe it was changed.
That’s the fix from Apple’s side — setting a flight mode that only activates after a set time period, altitude changes indicating landing, or some other beacon saying you’ve landed. So long as the Bluetooth radio doesn’t transmit, it should be fine from an FAA/EU equivalent point of view.
I was able to determine that someone with the exact same bag had taken mine from baggage claim and retrieve it from them before they left the airport with it. We both had much better vacations as a result. I’m going to keep mine in my luggage, sorry.
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 344 ms ] threadBecause it’s a scam. They pick “enforcement” targets by guessing who seems likely to pay.
I’ve never been charged when traveling solo. But with family or co-workers they have a shot at the “oh, just pay it, we have a plane to catch” gambit. I know their tricks and always refuse. Then I lay the bag down and start rifling through it like Yoda in Luke’s lunchbox.
The long line of passengers who think they will miss their flight are staring daggers at me. My travel companions are attempting to activate their invisibility cloaks. I give not one f because it is a scam.
I am helping everyone by showing it is a scam. Half the time the agent backs down. The other times I can usually throw a few heavier things into a spare duffel bag. F that s.
OK, I guess I'll...move a few things from there into another bag that is going onto the same flight, possibly the bag of someone I'm traveling with. Now you have reduced the flying weight of the plane by exactly 0 grams and made everyone a few percent more angry / delayed / stressed out.
This is a dumb policy.
You can see out the window of the plane the way handlers drag and drop even much lighter bags and crates, even when tagged “fragile”, how much the weight matters and how much they give a s. I have video. The jars survived. Double-boxing ftw.
They're claiming it's due to radio transmission anyways.
They're scanned every step of the way anyway. It's absolutely ridiculous for a carrier to come back with "we don't know where your bag is". Especially in 2022.
Moving my belongings to an off-site location is _precisely_ the sort of thing I'd want to be notified of, and if the airline doesn't feel that I deserve to know that, ahh, well. That would be problematic.
I appreciate that you're trying to find alternate explanations, and it's my first impulse to do the same, but I've been racking my brain and I just can't come up with any. This one isn't better, it's worse.
If the bags aren’t being delivered, that’s troublesome for the owner of the bags. And a version of “troublesome” I find more sympathy for compared to the burden on poor ol’ massive airline companies having to listen to their customers when they lose their property.
"What do you mean, you have an Airtag in your bag? We don't have any guarantees for baggage containing banned materials."
The law (it’s short): https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.21
An advisory circular relating to it: https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...
This allows an air carrier to approve anything they’re confident won’t cause an issue but not approve AirTags.
If it's just scare tactics then the similarity to watches is irrelevant. However, if for whatever reason they want to crack down on it, it being similar to wristwatches isn't going to stop them. I suspect most wristwatches are kept with the person rather than in checked luggage, and that if were actually determined they could demand a search of your luggage if they spot anything that remotely looks like an airtag on x-ray.
While this is negligible and I can see a lot of people saying "Well who cares it's just one" if you imagine a lot of interference from a lot of baggage with them on a flight.. I haven't tested, but personally I would prefer to be safer rather than sorry.
It's also worth noting this is a de-facto rule for US domestic flights too. All carriers, switching to airplane mode is a federal requirement on U.S. domestic flights.
Edit : I found an article saying they were compliant with US but no sources.. https://thepointsguy.com/news/bag-tracking-apple-airtag/
Considering that half of the passengers are likely forgetting to put their device in airplane mode - and they’re all using Bluetooth headphones, there is effectively zero risk to the airplane.
How many people do you think actually do this. (I mostly do, when I remember.)
If it's actually a problem, the FAA would be dealing with it other than hoping passengers individually pressed all the right buttons.
I'm biased but I would like to believe most people remember,
Yes, I know it's usually right there on a screen you'd think they'd look at pretty often.
I stand by that.
Beyond that, several on every flight who might do it, will forget to, and several more just don't give a fuck. Despite this I've never once seen anyone get hassled over it.
If you aren’t then someone should tell United because I stayed connected to their network watching a movie all the way from cruise altitude to the gate.
So yeah it's not for technical reasons.
1. https://fccid.io/BCGA2187
2. http://www.aluminium-foil.org/aluminum-foil-for-electromagne...
So I know that doesn't do anything. I bet if I put one of these in airplane mode, I've won enough RF budget for everyone to have Airtags on
The only update I've gotten is this email two weeks ago, their hotline and website are completely useless. Via DeepL
> Good day,
> We apologize that you have not yet received your luggage and for the inconvenience this has caused. We regret that we are currently unable to meet our standards for a smooth travel experience.
> Why are there delays?
> There are currently massive logistical and personnel failures and bottlenecks worldwide, which are delaying baggage handling in particular. The world of flying is highly interconnected. We are dependent on our global partners here and are thus confronted with numerous challenges.
> We are working hard to ensure that all delayed baggage is delivered within the coming weeks.
> If you would like to check the baggage status yourself, please use the baggage status page only. Our telephone service centers will not be able to assist with any questions regarding your baggage.
> Kind regards
> Your Lufthansa Team
Not just this summer. Europe has been worse than worldwide since at least 2018.
Ok, I lost my luggage in Brussels, provide the "bounty hunter" my information (i.e., location), give them a legal authorization, and they go claim my baggage from where it is stuck, and help it move to where it needs to be.
Of course it will not be straightforward, but if we can make it happen with one airline, maybe others will follow.
Of course the name will not be a bounty hunter service, but something that is more marketing driven.
Absolutely! Look at the photos in https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-61848486 and imagine trying to find your bag without a tracker in that mess.
Time spent searching for one bag is better spent sending 15 bags on their way.
Most airports cut down personnel due to Covid-19 and when the amount of flights quickly ramped up to previous (or possibly higher than before) levels couldn't manage (or did not want) to find/hire/re-hire enough personnel.
When this happens, the luggage is normally stored in a hangar or other warehouse at the airport, far from passenger traffic, and with access reserved to these ground service personnel, so the most you would get with an airtag (if any of the personnel has an iPhone) is that your luggage still exists in a place which you cannot have access to, no way to collect it.
There is no way that people are going to stop putting AirTags in their luggage, at least not while airlines are still constantly losing luggage and fighting people on reimbursement.
Where now what it might be like is: "Oh no my baggage is lost at XYZ airport at your terminal" and that accountability is somewhat forced now because they can't just say it wasn't found or it is 'in transit' when it really isn't.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/19/what-travelers-need-to-know-...
With another European airline I recently waited exactly one day less than the three weeks required for them to deliver a child seat. That’s almost three weeks of not having one to safely transport my child, no support or compensation. Since I was returning to my country of residence the credit card company also didn’t refund.
That seems pretty unlikely; the receipts now go to your email where you'd have to delete them intentionally.
In my case, I think they deliberately bumped my bag for paying cargo, because they saw my billing address was near the destination airport and assumed I would be fine "at home". They didn't know I was going to a wedding, and that said wedding was several hours drive away, so delivering my bag a day late to the destination airport wouldn't end the problem. They still paid out though.
You already need to insure higher values anyway if you want to be entitled to a reimbursement, so this would set a nice minimum that encourages customer friendly behavior.
Why not just buy a new one and charge the airline for it?
For a baby car seat, probably not worth it. For other things it might be but the receipt is missing etc.
At the end it's a damage you have to face for them not doing their job right.
The frequent flyer program is oftentimes worth more than the airline, and it’s a currency with no rules where the airline can do pretty much whatever they want with its value. It’s insane.
Maybe hiring more McKinsey consultants can fix it!
Now JetBlue codeshares with AA. Worried.
Still, it's my stuff, so I'm going to keep putting AirTags in every bag I travel with. I'm sorry, but.. what are they going to do? Ban me from the airline?
Again, I think its a dumb rule. But don't think you are special and can just ignore it forever with no consequences.
But you also say "it's a sellers market" which would imply high demand where they can afford to lose a few passengers (which would be true based on basic economics). So I suspect this is what you intended to say, unless I'm really misunderstanding something.
1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LOADFACTOR
This is kind of amazing to hear. Roughly the last 10 flights I've been on have been completely full.
I made no suggestion that I should be able to shirk the rules while everyone else deserves to get caught.
You're welcome to point and laugh at me if Lufthansa bans me and I have to stop putting AirTags in my bags so as not to be banned by other airlines, should they choose to adopt such an anti-consumer stance as well.
I have no real issue with taking a calculated risk, the kinds of calculated risks we take all day every day. Surely you don't carefully read the terms of carriage on every airline ticket you purchase. I know I don't. I trust that the market will more or less treat us reasonably, and if one vendor does not, I can find another which does.
Mind linking to the relevant regulations that say that? The ones that I turned up[1] says that batteries are fine as long as they're in an installed device.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33128125
This is absolutely not true – guidelines from e.g. FAA and IATA are extremely clear that devices are permitted in both checked and carry-on baggage. There are some restrictions around bare cells, e-cigarettes etc. but for the most part these devices are no problem.
"Detect airtags nearby" is an app you can download.
(26) Baggage equipped with lithium battery(ies) must be carried as carry-on baggage unless the battery(ies) is removed from the baggage. Removed battery(ies) must be carried in accordance with the provision for spare batteries prescribed in paragraph (a)(18) of this section. The provisions of this paragraph do not apply to baggage equipped with lithium batteries not exceeding:
(i) For lithium metal batteries, a lithium content of 0.3 grams; or
(ii) For lithium ion batteries, a Watt-hour rating of 2.7 Wh.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-I/s...
https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/cr2032.pdf
I thought they have the no explosive cr2032 or thereabouts…
2. The relevant authorities[1][2] seem to say that batteries in checked luggage is fine as long as it's in install equipment, so you're not violating any regulations that would get you reported.
[1] https://www.iata.org/contentassets/6fea26dd84d24b26a7a1fd578...
[2] https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/lithium-batteries-baggage
You have a point where he may make multiple stops which may include the personal addresses of folks also on your flight. But I can’t imagine you have enough ability to match a person with an address this way.
Does that actually happen to people still? I thought it was just a 90s meme. I get a push notification every time they move my bag anywhere. 'Accepted into the system', 'loaded onto the plane', 'unloaded off the plane', 'popped out at the carousel'. Seems pretty bullet proof these days.
2022 was an anomalous year since the airlines ramped up their schedules without having support staff at the airports to handle it. The statistics seem to indicate a tripling of lost luggage rates.
My math professor is flying once a month to Europe from the US for the past 20 years. He told me about this statistic he built from his trip history and I thought he was exaggerating.
On my 10th trans-Atlantic trip of course I lost my luggage.
At Heathrow, it'd mean 20,000+ people a day with lost luggage (if they all checked luggage). You'd need more than the entire taxi fleet of London to get their luggage to their hotels.
Really doesn't pass a common-sense check.
https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/pages/how-it-works
They say a 3 month search, but if you read around you’ll see 5+ days and your bag is basically gone. They say .03% of all checked bags end up lost and then unclaimed. How many must get lost to reach that unclaimed number?
I was in Greece once dealing with lost luggage. The airline threw it on a ferry and told me to run on and look/grab my bag when it got to the island I was on. I guess that’s some effort lol
And, this time I had AirTags in my bags which ended up being super useful for tracking.
https://newsrnd.com/business/2022-07-08-travel-chaos--5-000-...
Edit: improved source and removed misleading numbers from previous article
Hah, if you're in the United States you should be fine. Federal law forces the airlines to reimburse you, even for just delayed baggage [0].
Last year my bag was delayed a few days on a trip to the mountains. My airline paid the cost to replace all of the clothing and other material in my bag. I think it ended up being ~$2100 worth. I bought items comparable to what I had brought, e.g. a lot of high-quality thermal clothing, some board games, chargers, etc, and I got to keep all of it.
[0]: https://www.transportation.gov/lost-delayed-or-damaged-bagga...
Enough of a mitigated safety risk that the CR2032 that the AirTag uses is small enough to be exempted from the lithium battery rules.
On her first flight home, she missed her flight, but her luggage “made it.” She was able to track the bag all the way to the American West Coast, and apparently the workers at the airport even found it helpful in the “last mile” of retrieving the bag.
On her second flight, Lufthansa lost the bag on a flight to Helsinki. They were apparently huge dcks about it, but again she was able to accurately track and eventually retrieve it.
AirTags are one of those devices that really surpass their advertised usefulness. I’m encouraging everyone I know who travels to get some.
I do wonder about the workers who must be getting those automated “yo a tracker is following you” anti-stalking messages on their iPhones, though.
My kids are tagged when traveling. Elderly in laws at times.
This rule makes them look like they know they’re terrible/ don’t want to get caught.
You can test this yourself by downloading the NFC Tools app on your iPhone (or one for Android) and doing a read on the AirTag.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nfc-tools/id1252962749
My phone won’t scan one from more than a few inches, but I can locate them with Find My iPhone 20+ feet off.
https://lifehacker.com/try-using-a-bluetooth-scanner-app-to-...
Even if you bury the AirTag in the middle of the luggage, it will still be trackable, but NFC will absolutely not come even close to reaching it.
They’re not going to have off the shelf equipment capable of locating an AirTag quickly enough to matter even if they can tell there are AirTags somewhere in the general vicinity of the luggage area. That’s just not how any of this works.
Whether the rule itself is ridiculous or not, as others have pointed out, the main benefit seems to be that they can tell customers to stop bothering them about luggage that they’ve lost.
They don't have to know.
All they want to do is respond to "You lost my bag" with "But you jeopardized the entire flight with your illegal transmitter".
And carrying an AirTag, even if it were against their rules, does not somehow absolve them of their duty to return the bag (and/or pay for the lost luggage).
I land, and before I check my texts I check for my bags.
They have almost always already been reported to the find my network and I have peace of mind.
Even at the baggage carousels. I just activate “Find” and it tells me if my bag is “near by” and rarely it’ll even give me the arrow pointing at my luggage.
I didn’t even realize that I was previously micro-stressing about this stuff. But I can definitely tell the change I’ve had in mental state with an AirTag in my luggage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
On my phone, turning on airplane mode seems to disable the cell and wifi radios (with wifi able to be toggled back on) but Bluetooth defaults to staying on.
I don't think this move by Lufthansa has much to do with engineering :)
They just don't want people to have proof they've lost their luggage.
They technically can -— the best kind of can I guess —- but it is not in the spirit of course of ILS interference (@108-112 MHz) with Bluetooth at 2.45 GHz and extremely low range. Hell the pilot is likely to have their iPad with Bluetooth on during all plane operations.
FAA expects to be communicating with mature individuals and entities and not this in their guidelines.
With the same thinking they can ban pacemakers and all cordless headphones, and …breathing. Good luck to Lufthansa. They just declared their baggage handling sucks.
It seems to me they either have to throw away all airtags they find in luggage, or they have to check everyones' phones inside the airplane before they take off, or they're just bluffing.
I have no doubt that they'll do exactly this. They'll likely stick them into an RF-blocking pouch first, then destroy them all. You won't get it back, you won't get any compensation, and they'll point to their policies as to why.
Because, what, it's impossible to program things like this to start transmitting after an N-hour radio silence?