It's no secret that the aviation industry — like many others — was disrupted by COVID-19. During the height of the pandemic, lockdowns forced airlines to make layoffs, shrinking the industry's labor force. When demand came roaring back, few, if any, airlines were ready. That's how we got here. And here. The holiday spike sent some airlines in total tailspins, triggering cancellations across the US.
This comes on top of the industry's turbulent 2022: In April, a quarter of all flights were delayed. Over 2 percent were cancelled altogether. 220,000 suitcases were lost in transit, a 135 percent jump year-over-year. Then, things got even worse. In July, Delta, facing an overstock of off-course suitcases, flew a plane filled with 1,000 bags but no passengers from London to Detroit.
Can you put an AirTag in Your Checked Luggage?
Yes, you're allowed to put your AirTag in your checked luggage. When you check in for a flight and plop your bag on the luggage scale, the attendant at the desk will ask about you having lithium batteries in your suitcase, but AirTags don’t have enough lithium to be worth mentioning.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, lithium metal batteries, non-rechargeable, are limited to two grams of lithium per battery. Apple’s Airtags use a CR2032 battery, which has about 0.109 lithium content— so yes, you can put an AirTag in your checked luggage worry free.
Put an AirTag in Your Suitcase
Worried the airport will swallow your suitcase next? That's fair, even though plenty of airlines offer tools within their apps to track your bag(s) as you board, land and deplane. But can you trust them? Recently, a passenger was told their bag was in a distribution center, but their personal tracker said otherwise. While she might have uncovered an assortment of stolen bags, hers was in the hands of a courier, who was tasked with getting it to her after it was mis-delivered to a suburban home.
In 2022, aviation analyst and travel journalist Alex Macheras was able to track down his friends' bag using the same surprising tech accessory: an Apple AirTag. His friend, who'd flown to him from Paris, landed without luggage, but the airline insisted it had been loaded onto the plane. Essentially, she was shit out of luck. Macheras, however, managed to prove the bag was left behind at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport, a Twitter thread of his revealed. The airline overnighted the bag, and she received it the next day.
In this scenario, it wasn't the attendant in her destination's fault the bag was falsely reported as having arrived, and they couldn't offer much assistance even if she insisted the bag never dropped onto a baggage claim belt. Maybe another passenger took it by mistake. Or, perhaps it's still circling a different station. Both are plausible scenarios, and if you don't have an AirTag in your bag you'd never know the truth. You'd file a claim, fetch yourself a cab and wait for the airline to recoup your property.
Where to Put the AirTag in Your Luggage
To avoid this fate, order yourself an Apple AirTag ($29) and a case with some sort of chain. Next, find something within your suitcase to attach it to. Don't just throw it in or put it in the pocket of pants you packed. If your bag is randomly selected for a deeper security search, you run the risk of it falling out if the bag is emptied entirely or accidentally spilled. By latching it onto a handle or hook, you know it'll stay in there even if TSA rummages through it before it's loaded onto the plane.
In the Find My app, you can name the AirTag as you so please: you could call it "Noel's Luggage," like my fiancée, Noel, did, or something clever like "The Briefcase." Your call, but the app will know when it's at home with you, toppled over on the tarmac or shipped off to some faraway airport you never planned on stepping foot in — even when your airline your airline doesn't. It'll stay live as long as it's near enough to an iPhone to relay its signal. And they're hardly ever far enough away to be unable to update its coordinates. Someone recently put one in a plastic bottle and tossed it in the river, and they can still track it, even as it floats down stream. (I don't condone doing this, but thanks for your research.)
Apple AirTag Kit
