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Apple is about to make losing your luggage far less of a hassle. The Cupertino tech giant is readying the ability to share an item’s location with airlines across the world.
It piggybacks off of the Find My and AirTags tracking technologies. Dubbed Share Item Location, it’ll allow you to give tracking information access to clumsy airlines that might have caused your suitcase to go AWOL.
Find My is available on nearly all Apple portables and phones, and has been free since iOS 4.2.1. With iOS 9, and macOS 10.15 Catalina it was bundled with the operating system.
The new Share Item Location feature was launched on Monday. If you’re on the iOS 18.2 beta, you can start using it now before it hits the mainstream.
Share Item Location operates similarly to the sharing location features already available on iOS and messaging apps like WhatsApp. Apple will let you shut off the sharing information manually, or it’ll expire after seven days.
However, it’s not yet live for airlines just yet. Apple states that “in the coming months” it’ll partner with “more than 15 airlines”, integrating its tech into the customer service.
- 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
- Virgin Atlantic
- Vueling
Expect this list to grow once the feature officially leaves beta, as Apple expects more to be added in the future.
Apple highlighted that AirTags have already proven useful for tracking down missing luggage. In a press release, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services said, “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.”
A 2023 report from NPR claims that the US airline industry loses 2 million suitcases a year. However, Apple’s new functionality should make it a breeze to retrieve those carefully packed (and soon-to-be messily repacked) suitcases.
Featured image: Matthew Hurst, Apple
