Apple wants to help airlines find your lost luggage

(CNN) — It’s a forlorn scene: after a long flight, you watch as each and every passenger departs the baggage area while you stand idle, waiting for your suitcase to appear on the belt. A walk to customer service takes place soon after.

Many people have experienced landing at one destination, while their bags end up in another. About 6.9 bags per 1,000 passengers were mishandled in 2023, according to SITA, an IT provider for airlines. Of those mishandled bags, about 5% were reported as lost or stolen.

Now, Apple wants to help you find your lost luggage.

Apple is unveiling a new feature where users will be able to share an Air Tag’s location with third parties, like airlines. In the Find My application, users will be able to generate and share a link to an Air Tag’s location as part of the “Share Item Location” feature.

The new service will be integrated into airline customer service at 15 carriers, including Delta and United, according to an Apple news release published on November 11. Passengers who attach an air tag to their luggage will be able to share its live location with the airline, helping people track their luggage while flying — and find it if lost.

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Usually, an Apple user can see the location of their Air Tags in their Find My application. Now, users will be able to create a live-updating link that they can share with others.

The link will lead to a website that will display the Air Tag’s live location on an interactive Apple map. Users can disable the link at any time, and it will automatically expire either when the user is reunited with their Air Tag, or after seven days.

David Kinzelman, United’s chief customer officer, said the company will be incorporating the Share Item Location feature into its “baggage recovery process.”

“We know many of our customers are already traveling with AirTag in their checked bags, and this feature will soon make it easier for them to share location information with us safely and securely, helping our customer service agents work more efficiently and giving our customers added peace of mind,” Kinzelman said in a statement. “We plan to accept Find My item locations in select airports initially, with the goal of introducing the service systemwide in early 2025.”

In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for United said more details would be shared over time.

In addition to integrating the Share Item Location feature directly into some airline companies’ customer service, the technology will be built into SITA’s baggage-tracing system that is used by more than 500 airlines and 2,800 airports across the globe.

The new Apple feature is available worldwide in beta and is part of the iOS 18.2 software update, which is expected to be released in December.

Since being introduced in 2021, the Apple Air Tag product has helped people keep track of their belongings, from wallets to keys. Apple is betting it will help alleviate travelers’ lost-luggage woes.

“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,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services, said in a statement. “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.”

The airlines initially partnering with Apple to incorporate the feature into their customer service operations are 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 Airlines, Turkish Airlines, United, Virgin Atlantic and Vueling.

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