Apple and Qantas partner on AirTag bag tracking
Airlines and airports will be able to join the real-time hunt for your lost luggage.
By David Flynn, November 13 2024
Travellers across Australia and around the world have embraced Apple’s AirTags for keeping an eye on their checked luggage, even when – especially when – it goes AWOL.
Now it’s about to get easier to track down a piece of lost luggage, with airlines and airports joining the hunt using the AirTag’s real-time location finding tech.
Apple is working with Qantas to allow AirTag users to temporarily share the location of an AirTagged bag with the airline, based on an update to its iPhone software due for release in early December (just in time for the summer holiday travel surge).
The tech giant says it “has worked directly with partner airlines to put systems in place to privately and securely accept Share Item Location, leveraging the hundreds of thousands of Apple devices many airlines are already using.”
Each Apple-anointed airline “will begin accepting Find My item locations as part of their customer service process for locating mishandled or delayed bags.”
AirTag locations will be easily shared on a short-term basis with Qantas and other selected airlines.
Travellers will be able to share a link to their missing AirTagged luggage with Qantas and over a dozen other airlines using a new Share Item Location option in the Find My app.
On Apple devices the link will open the Find My app, allowing them to see the location of the nominated AirTagged item; on non-Apple devices, the link opens a Web page with a map showing the missing item’s last known location.
The location of AirTags can be shown in real-time on an interactive map.
An additional Show Contact Info option lets you share your phone number and email address so the person who finds your missing item can contact you.
The link automatically expires after seven days or when the item has been returned to you.
Apple says that airline access to each link “will be limited to a small number of people, and recipients will be required to authenticate in order to view the link through either their Apple Account or partner email address.”
Apple AirTags shouldn’t be confused with the larger and more colourful Qantas bag tags, which are available free to frequent flyers but serve only to highlight the owner’s status on carry-on bags – and, from time to time, catch the attention of airport security staff.
No, it's not a colourful AirTag holder – this is the Qantas bag tag.
The full list of Apple’s AirTag-friendly airlines is:
- Aer Lingus
- Air Canada
- Air New Zealand
- Austrian Airlines
- British Airways
- Brussels Airlines
- Delta Air Lines
- Eurowings
- Iberia
- KLM
- Lufthansa
- Qantas
- Singapore Airlines
- Swiss
- Turkish Airlines
- United Airlines
- Virgin Atlantic
- Vueling
Also on board is SITA, which provides baggage management systems used by over 500 airlines and ground handlers at more than 2,800 airports around the world; SITA says its WorldTracer baggage-tracking system will be upgraded to include inbuilt support for AirTag location sharing.
Executive Traveller understands that Qantas aims to launch integrated AirTag support in the coming months.
Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia and Vueling – all owned by IAG – will be among the first to accept AirTag sharing next month, with United Airlines following in early 2025.
Share Item Location is built on the Find My network, a crowdsourced network of over one billion Apple devices that use Bluetooth wireless technology to detect missing devices or items nearby, and report their approximate location back to the owner.
“The Find My network and AirTag have proven to be a powerful combination for users while traveling, providing invaluable location information when bags have been misplaced or mishandled,” says Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services.
“With Share Item Location, we’re excited to give users a new way to easily share this information directly with third parties like airlines, all while protecting their privacy.”
Also read: How to claim your free Qantas luggage tag
QF
11 Jul 2014
Total posts 1010
I'm not a 100% fan of Air Tags, especially when they show they are still with my bags in Singapore, Miami, Malta, wherever I took off from, and then I spend the rest of the flight in a panic, but then they suddenly appear at your designation 🤷🏻♂️.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
10 Jun 2020
Total posts 16
Yeah I like them but find the same issue they don't update enough. I will have 1 bag showing at my destination and the other still in Sydney then they both come out. No idea why this is
17 Apr 2020
Total posts 3
The AirTag in your bags when in the hold go the aircraft can't signal you because its out of Bluetooth range of you or another iPhone/iPad/Mac on Apple's 'Find My Network'.
20 Nov 2015
Total posts 478
I've had my AirTag appear in the middle of a flight on a 737, my bag must have been in the cargo hold and directly beneath a passenger using an iPhone on the plane's inflight WiFi.
18 Sep 2015
Total posts 139
In 737s luggage is loaded directly into the hold. For most other jet types, the luggage is containerised before loading - the metal containers block signals from the AirTags.
22 Jul 2014
Total posts 15
We flew from AUS to SIN and Air Tag was in our luggages of SQ Flight and I could see real time location of our lugguages (even when it was it the cargo area of our plane) flying at 35,000 feet
Qantas
22 Oct 2012
Total posts 319
An AirTag must be able to connect with a nearby iPhone for you to receive an update of its location. If your bag is loaded inside the terminal into an ULD (a metal luggage container) then the AirTag is unlikely to send any further updates till it is unloaded at its destination. This is more likely to happen on an A330 and larger aircraft.
22 Jan 2020
Total posts 79
It doesn't need to be an iPhone, it can be any Apple device that has a bluetooth and network connection.
18 Nov 2023
Total posts 24
The only way a Bluetooth (short range) electronic device is likely to communicate with a “find me” network at (say) 35,000 plus feet is if someone with an Apple iPhone is standing (also at 35,000 plus feet) at an airways corridors crossing point watching the ‘big silver birds’ fly past. And if the ’big silver bird’ you’re in has an older style aluminium fuselage, the aluminium will block any Bluetooth signals, so not even the plane-spotter standing at 35,000 plus feet will receive a signal telling their iPhone that your bag just passed by,
So, once your checked bag is put in the aluminium cargo hold container with all the other checked bags and that container is full and closed, your AirTags can’t talk to anyone to tell them where your bags are until the container is opened at your destination.
But relax, airlines lose less than half the bags they carry, so the odds are that by the time your get to the baggage carousel, your AirTag will have chirped its position to a nearby iPhone, the iPhone will have passed the position to Apple, Apple will have de-coded the data and determined that the AirTag belongs to YOU and will have sent the details to your “find me” application … and there it is, on the carousel belt just in front of you. Maybe.
Clever Apple.
09 May 2020
Total posts 572
As APACPete indicated, the AirTags relies on iPhone device ownership around the luggage handling process (and the phone switched on) so how soon the geolocation gets updated does relate to countries and affordability of iPhone
22 Jan 2020
Total posts 79
My experience with the AirTags on various airlines has been brilliant - they certainly remove any anxiety while at the baggage claim.
07 Feb 2018
Total posts 21
So, because the airlines aren’t so good at baggage as they used to be, the solution is the passenger aka customer, is buying AirTags and helping Apple with more revenue. Can’t see the consumer win here.
18 Nov 2023
Total posts 24
“… Can’t see the consumer win here …”.
You will, around about the time you were expecting to pick your bag off the LHR carousel(s) and, when it doesn’t appear, you’re able to determine (from the Apple “Find My” app) that it’s sitting at JFK … AND … you’re able to tell your airline exactly where your bag went … AND … you get your bag back within a day or two (maybe). Clever Apple.
And even better once Apple get their “share” update out to existing registered users. This will apparently allow users to temporarily share live location details with another user, e.g. the airline at the bag’s location, so that THEY can go straight to the errant bag. Clever, clever Apple.
Or perhaps you could save around 50 bucks by not having one.
02 Sep 2014
Total posts 6
Let's hope that the other 70% of the mobile device population (those using Android) also get looked after, or my Tiles will get lonely.
15 Feb 2014
Total posts 12
My own thoughts exactly.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
09 Jun 2017
Total posts 77
Agree with Tonym. The airline should be responsible for tracking luggage, why should we, the travelling public be providing the tracking hardware. It’s not as if good tracking technology is not available to airlines now. We should be getting live location tracking at every point from drop off, moving to the aircraft, loaded onto aircraft then all the way to the belt on arrival. Simple!
AirTag location updating is patchy at best and have others have said, causes unacceptable stress when a location change is missed which happens a lot just because of the way this system works.
22 Jan 2020
Total posts 79
In the past 12 months I've travelled into and around Europe, into the East coast of the USA, across Australia using AirTags and the location updating has never ever been an issue and certainly never had a location missed and that is because of the way the system works - bags sitting to be loaded into an aircraft invariably get picked up by another bluetooth device and the location updates. The airline does track baggage already, what this is doing is providing a personal real time update and at the same time being able to show the airline where the bag is if their tracking misses it - why would anyone complain about that?
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
09 Jun 2017
Total posts 77
Hi mitchsydney. You had a good experience using AirTags. Your locations mentioned are big users of iPhones and I assume that baggage handlers and others that re-transmit the AirTag locations are not restricted in having personal phones with them as they work. Your experience is not surprising. China, India and South East Asia generally have lower usage of iPhones and if we are talking about manual workers including baggage handlers and others airline workers, where incomes are lower and cost is really important, Android options are a clear winner and this will be the driver for my and others experiences that have been less than perfect. I note that other than Singapore Airline, Air New Zealand and Qantas all other AirTag Friendly airlines are Europe or Americas based.
I assume that this initiative is being driven by Apple to promote the sale of their product, not the airlines themselves. I would be very concerned if airlines start to promote of these types of products when they should be utilising other available technology to build robust tracking systems, tell me exactly where it is in the world and never lose a bag.
18 Nov 2023
Total posts 24
My goodness! Hasn’t the ‘worm turned’ quickly (a full 180 degrees) on this subject. A short time ago the airlines were bleating ‘none of this modern technology silliness on our flights thank you. Lithium batteries you know. Dangerous’. Dangerous indeed. Not.
A single CR 2032 battery per AirTag. Always were well within IATA lithium content maximum for freight transportation. Typically a maximum of 0.109 grams (0.0038 oz) per battery … considerably less with some brands of battery.
Now they embrace the technology. ‘We know exactly where your bags have disappeared to’.
Clever airlines. At last.
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