New Apple Feature Lets Airlines Find Your Misplaced Luggage

Apple is introducing a new feature that will allow users to temporarily share the location of a lost AirTag with airlines or other parties to locate misplaced luggage.

As reported by MacRumors, the feature is coming with the next update to iOS 18.2 and it will allow the Find My app to temporarily share the location of a lost AirTag with the airline itself. This should prove extremely useful for airline staff to locate your lost item or luggage, speeding up what would otherwise be a slow process.

You can do this via a new “Share Item Location” option that comes with the update. It generates a link you can fire off to anyone, whether it’s a person in your contacts or an airline.

Huge update to Find My in iOS 18.2 beta 2

Get help finding a lost item by sharing its location with an airline or trusted person. They will be able to see the location of your item on a map. pic.twitter.com/lHckNRfZbj

— Aaron (@aaronp613) November 4, 2024

On Apple devices, the link opens directly in the Find My app to show the live location of your AirTag and its attached item. For everyone else, it pops open a webpage with the AirTag’s last known coordinates on a map.

The link automatically expires after one week, or as soon as your lost item gets found. You can also see how many people clicked the link, so you’ll know if the airline is actively trying to track down your bag or not.

There’s also a “Show Contact Info” button to optionally share your phone number and email, allowing the person who stumbles across your wayward possessions to reach out directly.

The new sharing feature builds on an update from last year that allowed you to continuously share an AirTag’s location with up to five other trusted people. So your family could easily track a pet or follow along with a shared car, for instance. But this latest trick opens that capability up further on a temporary, ad-hoc basis.