Apple will let you share location of lost items with airlines

Baggage lost on your last flight? No worries: Soon you'll be able to share its exact location with the airline.

On Monday, Apple launched a new iOS feature called Share Item Location. It's a new way to share the real-time coordinates of lost or misplaced items with third parties, including airlines. This works on accessories that support Apple's Find My feature, as well as AirTags.

Users can do this by opening Find My and generating a Share Item Location link for a particular item. If you send it to someone, they'll receive a link that will bring up an interactive map showing the item in its current location, and the map will update when the item moves.

SEE ALSO: AirTag odyssey: One woman's lost luggage journey goes viral

"The Find My network and AirTags have proven to be a powerful combination for users while traveling, providing invaluable location information when bags have been misplaced or mishandled. "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," said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services.

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The feature is available in iOS 18.2 beta, though the update should become widely available "soon."

Once you get your item back, the shared location will be disabled. Credit: Apple

People (including the author of this text) have already started using Apple's AirTags to track misplaced luggage. It helped me locate and expedite its recovery more than once. But with this new feature, Apple is looking to make it a part of airlines' customer service.

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According to the company, more than 15 airlines will start accepting Find My item locations as part of their customer service. The list includes 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, and Vueling. Apple says these airlines will be added to the program "in the coming months," with more airlines being added "in the coming months."

Apple says it has taken care to keep this data secure and private. The process of sharing the item's location is end-to-end encrypted and anonymous, the company said. And once the misplaced item is back in your hands, the shared location will automatically be disabled.