Lufthansa bans AirTags in checked luggage | Hacker News Reader

Lufthansa bans AirTags in checked luggage

onemileatatime.com

584 pointsN19PEDL2600 comments

Knowing German I read through the sources. This article is pretty misleading.

The [primary source](https://www.watson.de/leben/urlaub%20&%20freizeit/879935671-...) is a slightly clickbait article asking the questions: "Are AirTags allowed in checked luggage?".

They reached out to Lufthanse asking them. They responded: "Luggage trackers are electronic devices so they have to be turned off when the luggage is checked".

It is unclear wether they really understood how AirTags work and that they are not active trackers.

There are a bunch of other magazine echoing this response but I have yet to find an official statement by Lufthansa explicitly banning AirTags.

Best comment in this thread. This should really be about the article being a well executed recipe for clickbait.

Translation of the cited statement by the Lufthansa spokesperson:

“Baggage trackers belong to the category of Portable Electronic Devices and are therefore subject to the Dangerous Goods regulations issued by the International Civil Aviation Organization for carriage in aircraft. Accordingly, the trackers must be deactivated during the flight due to their transmission function, similar to cell phones, laptops, tablets, etc., if they are in the checked baggage.”

This likely refers to the following regulations: https://www.icao.int/safety/DangerousGoods/

From the 2017 addendum no. 2:

“Portable electronic devices containing lithium metal or lithium ion cells or batteries […]

d) if devices are carried in checked baggage:

— measures must be taken to prevent unintentional activation and to protect the devices from damage; and

— the devices must be completely switched off (not in sleep or hibernation mode);”

Note that the AirTag batteries contain lithium.

So Lufthansa is merely citing the applicable ICAO regulations, which presumably apply to all civil airlines.

This section makes it even more confusing to me, since I thought that the whole cell phone transmission restriction theater had been removed a few years ago. Was that only within the US and I've been violating EU regulations for years?

Is the cell phone transmission theater even lifted in the US? I still get asked to turn on airplane mode regularly (though Wi-Fi is okay)

Well, they used to come scream at you if you were reading a Kindle during takeoff, so that part has relaxed at least

So far as I know you're supposed to put your phone into airplane mode to turn the cellular radio off, but they don't seem to care if you use bluetooth any more

The reason for that one I've heard from pilot friends is just that they want you upright and alert during takeoff and landing. I've been told to stop reading a book during a landing once. But imagine most of the flight crew don't want to deal with the potential fights from telling someone to put away a non-cellular device.

I seem to remember from "Cockpit Confidential" that things could get thrown around in the air during a bumpy landing, causing a risk of head injury to passengers. This includes books.

> want you upright and alert during takeoff

I’m great at sleeping, so I sometimes fall asleep during taxi and before takeoff. That was never an issue.

I'm the opposite, basically never sleep on a plane.

But I've seen many people asleep during landing and turbulence, and can't remember a single instance of the attendants even attempting to wake them up. They would go open the windows and taking care not to bother them.

I don’t envy you, my wife is the same, so those long flights (Germany <--> South Africa) are pretty hard on her. And yeah, as long as you are visibly belted, they don’t bother you.

I'm usually playing games, reading or watching videos during takeoff and landing. Nobody has ever told me not to. Why would I need to be alert? Do they think I'm not going to notice if the plane suddenly starts falling off the sky?

They are supposed to ask everyone stow devices over 2 lbs.

i fly exclusively delta, and i always get asked to turn airplane mode on and any services that transmit audio are explicitly banned while on board (Discord, teams, etc.)

> services that transmit audio are explicitly banned

Because taking a call is annoying AF to the 50-100 other people in the shared giant tube.

I’ve been seated next to people who insist im not on a call, this is FaceTime and I’ve always wanted to yell at them for their disrespect.

Why don’t you?

If you have to ask this question, it is a sure sign you are not sufficiently socially calibrated to interact with other people on an air-plane. I advise you to invest time into better understanding your fellow humans by learning about psychology.

Yelling would be an overreaction, likely leading to further escalation and diminishing the chance of achieving the goal of stopping the maladaptive behaviour. GP acted correctly to suppress the impulse, I guess in the end he did nothing, which is the next best course of action. Adults are supposed to treat the problem situation in a calm manner and implicitly point out the established social boundaries (this works better if your personality is more masculine than feminine): interrupt the talking person and get his attention, kneel down to the same eye level, state clearly what can be observed what he's doing (having a conversation, perhaps talking loudly), what the effect is (annoying the other passengers), and remind him that calls are not allowed by the relevant authority (flight crew). Firmly direct him to end the call right now. Throughout the conversation keep stern demeanour, keep eye contact and the same level of volume when you speak.

If he complies right away, then mission fucking accomplished, requite by showing approval (nodding, making a slightly more friendly face), or perhaps even something expressing gratitude if that's appropriate in your culture.

The argument "not on a call, this is FaceTime" in an attempt to shift away from the central point of the conversation. Do not let him pull you into his frame. Simply ignore this sentence, keep referring to the call as a call. If he's stubborn, or ignores you, or wants to have a quarrel, then it is okay to metaphorically lose the fight. Walk away and inform the flight crew instead, it's out of your hands now. In the end, it is a certainty that you will win, even if the talking person turns out to be highly neurotic or narcissistic and throws a tantrum.

Pointing out disrespect is not likely to work, the talking person has already shown he does not care. However, shaming is more likely to work, it is a powerful social tool and it is very much appropriate to use here. You could say that all the people around are affected (insert hand gesture here) and they do not approve of what the talking person is doing.

What should not be done is body contact other than touching the shoulder to get attention; trying to take the headphones or mobile device; talking down (literally and figuratively). Do not ask, beg or demand, instead use the appropriate word that comes closest do instructing or directing, use the imperative verb form in your language.

I think that was the highest question to answer text ratio I've seen in a long time: 1 - 192

Don't ask a question you don't want to know the answer to.

Well, sometimes the question itself is intended as a DoS attack

I guess a form of https://xkcd.com/356/

> Firmly direct him to end the call right now. Throughout the conversation keep stern demeanour, keep eye contact and the same level of volume when you speak.

I'm not quite sure the other person is the one whose social calibration is off. This would be incredibly patronizing behavior unless you're speaking to a literal child. Besides, "Why don't you?" was obviously a throwaway half-joke.

Thank you. I legitimately debated on whether or not to respond, lol

> Because taking a call is annoying AF to the 50-100 other people in the shared giant tube.

Then why did airplanes used to have built-in phones in every seat?

This hasn't been the case for over 20 years on most planes and the onboard phones were so expensive that only business or 1st class passengers would even consider using then. As usual, their convenience was valued more than everyone else's. I'm sure nowadays if a 1st class passenger got on a call over the in-flight wifi, the staff wouldn't bother them either.

With the ubiquity and generally reasonable pricing of in-flight WiFi, I'm actually a bit surprised that you don't see more people jabbering away. I've never bought WiFi myself and I suspect there are quality issues and I assume some ports may be blocked, but I haven't seen many people obviously on active calls at all.

> “Used to”

They don’t anymore for many reasons. They also ask you to stop if you try to take one.

Actually, 2G does interfere with aircraft communication, I don't think it is the case for other bands.

You may already have heard the interference. Just before the phone rings, you may hear some a characteristic beeping sound on your headphones or speakers. And guess what, pilots hear it in their headsets too, aviation headsets are just regular wired headsets. I fly small planes and I hear it regularly. No big deal, it won't turn off the engine or anything like that but it is still a minor distraction, and it may affect communication.

I remember about 20 years ago, after the usual announcements, the pilot clearly said something along the lines of "someone has his cell phone turned on, please turn it off, I won't move before it is turned off".

So no, it is not just theater, maybe modern aircraft have a way of shielding pilot headsets from passenger phones, or maybe it is less of a problem with the phasing out of 2G, but it has a real effect I experienced first hand.

I'm surprised that anyone who believe that any passenger could mess with airplane communications by not turning their phone off would accept to take that risk and board a plane at all :)

If a phone can take down airline communications, there is something wrong with the aircraft. These should be properly shielded lines.

There are now millions of hours of airline ops with phones on. It doesn’t cause any problems.

Also hot tip: the pilots are using iPads the entire flight too. With Bluetooth and wifi often linked to other gadgets.

- I specifically mentioned 2G networks which AFAIK iPads do not even have, not WiFi or Bluetooth

- It can't "take down" aircraft communications, but it can be an annoyance to the pilots, which can be a problem in an emergency situation. It is a little thing, but aviation safety is a result of a lot of little things. Accidents rarely have a single cause. For example the worst accident in the history of aviation: the Tenerife disaster where two B747 ran into each others during takeoff is the result of a long and improbable chain of minor problems, some of them related to radio communication. Cell phone interference won't be the main cause of an accident but it may be a contributing factor.

- Do you really need to have your phone switched on? It won't work at cruise altitude anyways, and during take off and landing, you probably don't need another distraction.

So yes, having cell phones turned off make a lot of sense, it is a rule that has a small positive effect on security with almost no downside since you can't use electronic devices during take off and landing for other reasons (distraction) and you can't use your cell phone during cruise either because the network doesn't support it.

So when has this actually happened? There is a roughly zero percent chance that on any given flight, instructions to disable your phones are followed 100%. So, I think it's reasonable to suggest that literally every commercial flight flown in the past 15-ish years has done so with some device onboard that isn't in airplane mode.

Given that - why aren't airplanes constantly falling out of the sky? If this is the situation on every single flight, why isn't what you are suggesting actually happening?

edit: a downvote isn't exactly an answer, and I think it's a fair question. If the assertion is that cell phones etc cause serious problems for aircraft operations, then why are we not seeing it actually happen? Or are we saying that everyone on the flight is, in fact, turning every single electronic device they own off, every time, every device, for every person?

What I meant is that we are not talking about absolutes here. There will be some cell phones turned on, sure, but the less there is, the less likely it is to become a problem.

And one of the reasons airplanes are not constantly falling out of the sky is that there are thousands of little rules and safety considerations at every level. Software, hardware, pilot training, ATC, and some of them affect passengers directly. For example one not so obvious rule is that the cabin lights are turned off at night during landing, the reason is to make sure the eyes of passengers are accommodated to a dark environment in case of an evacuation. Rules related to electronic devices are in that category.

Rules are much less stringent on general aviation, but general aviation is also much less safe than commercial aviation. Cessnas don't fall out of the sky constantly but they do it more often than Boeings. The ratio is about the same as motorbikes vs cars.

I repeat, cell phones won't make planes fall out of the sky by themselves! But if the plane is already in the unlikely situation where it is about to fall out of the sky, everyone needs to be fully alert to respond to the situation, and the authorities concluded that it is better without beeping cell phones. Has it saved lives? We don't know, but if we waited for someone to die to implement safety policies, we would have a lot of dead people.

The rules may change, in fact they are changing and cell phones are allowed in some flights, but please follow the damn rules, there are here for a reason even if it may not be obvious. Flying is intrinsically dangerous: deadly speeds, deadly heights and deadly outdoor conditions. And yet commercial aviation is one of the safest means of transportation, the likes of the FAA and EASA are doing at least some things right.

And on a more personal, subjective note: I think it is a good thing to disconnect once in a while.

Funny how people without actual first hand experience with the issue defiantly ignore then attempt to refute every point you made.

A lot of people are ignorant of spectrum allocation, and sideband interference. Twenty years ago I had an old Samsung flip phone (2G/3G). I could tell every time a text came in when I was sitting at my computer, because the speakers would let loose with a tell-tale 'bzzzt bzzzt bzzzt' before the phone could finish handling it and displaying that I had a text. The handshake with the tower would be picked up somewhere in the audio path.

OK so here's my first-hand experience. In the 20+ years that personal cell phones have been commonplace, zero flights have experienced an accident as a result of that cell phone use. The FAA has also walked back the ban on use of personal electronic devices.

I appreciate that you feel strongly about this, but the world has done the experiment millions of times over a couple decades. We do not have to wonder about the outcome, the work was already done. Nothing happened.

So, neither reality nor the current stance of the FAA are in alignment with your assertion. "Funny how people..." indeed.

> These should be properly shielded lines.

Hehe, why do you assume the lines are a problem, when the physical comms system ends in a big antenna? Of course modern airliners have wiring that is all “properly” shielded.

> It doesn’t cause any problems.

Isn’t that a funny response to a pilot’s first hand account that a problem exists?

Exactly. Maybe needs to be cross posted to r/confidentlyincorrect

Just so there's no confusion on this, the cell phone rule is FCC, not FAA. It's not about interfering with the aircraft, it's about causing problems with cell networks.

Supposedly not putting in airplane mode will also wreak havoc with cell towers when flying low enough to cause interference and hella-frequent base station handovers.

Though I've found the latest generation of planes to be pretty much faraday cages, with most planes I'd believe it.

The main reason for what you call "theater" is possible interference with ILS. And saying mobile phones or other devices are not in the same frequencies, does not cover the scenarios of misbehaving/cheap or uncertified devices.

"Instrument landing: why do all electronic devices need to be shut off?" - https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/11555/instrumen...

"Why aren't cell phones allowed to be used in aircraft?" - https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/2021/why-arent-...

MythBusters dismissed it a few years but forgot to consider misbehaving/cheap or not certified devices. And I would not trust two hipsters to be the certification committee for commercial airliners... -

https://web.archive.org/web/20140715091521/http://www.discov...

The more predominant issue is keeping anything with a lithium-ion battery in checked luggage. They'll crack down on anything from laptops to hearing aids.

CR2032 batteries that are in airtags are NOT lithium-ion, they're non-rechargeable and are usually Lithium/Manganese Dioxide [1] (lithium metal). I believe they're fine to have in checked luggage if contained inside some equipment (like the airtag). [2] Look for PI 970 If transported by themselves, they're cargo aircraft only.

Source: [1] https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/cr2032.pdf [2] https://www.iata.org/contentassets/05e6d8742b0047259bf3a700b...

The wording “containing lithium metal” from the ICAO regulation still applies.

That same org also explicitly calls out button cells are not being covered. They really aren't the same thing as a rechargeable lithium ion cell.

They're fine to have in checked luggage (under some restrictions). But the device containing them must be completely switched off, according to the rules. That is at issue here.

Both lithium-ion and lithium metal batteries that are installed in devices are allowed in checked baggage in the US and most other places. The devices must be powered off. What that means is a bit ambiguous as most modern laptops, tablets, and phones have some components powered any time a battery is installed.

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/lithium-batteries-baggage

The regulation specifically states that "the devices must be completely switched off (not in sleep or hibernation mode)", and mobile devices normally all have a way to completely shut them down, with no components remaining active. The only exception I'm aware of are wireless earbuds (e.g. AirPods). Presumably you're not allowed to have those in checked baggage.

So electrical engineers could just use a MCU let it power itself of during flight, use passive components (discharging capacitors) to trigger a wakeup after a set time and you are good to go?

> use passive components (discharging capacitors)

mechanical egg timer?

Definitely no problem with a ticking noise coming from your luggage.

Candle clock

I would wager most people don’t realize that to completely turn off their iPhone they must adjust their settings to not use Find My even when powered off.

And to tell it somehow not to keep the clock running. Which of course is not possible.

I don’t think this is about transmission. Rather, it is probably to reduce the risk of thermal runaway of lithium batteries, which can cause fire and explosion.

The regulation also states that such devices “should be carried as carry-on baggage”, that is, in preference to checked baggage, presumably so that the devices are less prone to damage, and cases of malfunction and fire will be more quickly detected.

Sure. But to that end, are button batteries known to be susceptible to thermal runway?

See for example here: https://safetyfirst.airbus.com/lithium-batteries-safe-to-fly...

That article, while interesting, does not address button batteries. Maybe I missed it. I found it interesting that you can ship any amount of lithium batteries as cargo.

Button batteries are a different type. They don't overheat when shorted.

Anything which has energy overheats when shorted.

I upvoted you anyway, because by design, button cells have limited potential to cause damage when they short. Yes, they heat up, but they have very little energy to begin with, and a large amount of metal surface area which keeps thermal runaway in check.

Thank you for answering my question 4 layers below where I asked it.

Funny how the “don’t ask a question online, be confidently wrong” principle applies here so perfectly. I love it.

Air tags don't have lithium batteries

Did you bother to check? AirTags doesn't have any battery by itself, they use replaceable CR2032, which are most commonly lithium. Although alkaline alternatives exist.

My bad :(

All current *rechargeable* lithium chemistries are an issue, single-use is not. Air-Tags aren't going to start a fire.

So do cargo monitoring (temperature/tilt/vibration/tampering) devices, which are in a lot of commercial cargo - especially vaccine shipments, but any sort of sensitive equipment being air-freighted.

So do wireless earbuds, watches both smart and "dumb", hearing aides, sport sensors including chest heartrate monitors and bike sensors/computers, travel alarms, book lights, e-readers, keychain flashlights, film cameras, and probably a million other things Lufthansa has never cared about for several decades.

The vast majority of electronic devices are "soft" power now, and an e-reader with a 2000mah lithium ion battery is as "powered off" as an Airtag with a sub-3-gram battery. Airpods - no "completely" switched off mode, same for their case.

There's also never been a single case of an Airtag shorting or smoking or failing in any way that would endanger an airplane, and CR2032 batteries can't generate enough current, or contain enough energy, to pose a hazard.

For decades the airline industry had no problem shipping exothermic oxygen generators with little or no regulation (because it suited them well, as they needed to do so for logistics, as the generators are for emergency passenger oxygen) until it caused multiple commercial plane crashes. If you think Lufthansa is suddenly concerned about safety here, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

This is about them not wanting the public to see:

- that their luggage isn't on the plane with them, and generating a fuss at the gate / in the plane

- that their luggage is in a specific place/airport and come calling for it or say "I can see exactly where it is, stop lying to me, it's at airport _____, send it to me"

- their stolen luggage ending up at an employee's home, or the warehouse of a theft ring run by luggage handlers which the company is ignoring

- their "lost" luggage ending up at a warehouse where it is then sold by the pound to companies that sort through your luggage and ebay anything of value

They really hate that customers now have the power to see that they're being lied to and/or stolen from, and be held accountable.

This really should be a top level comment, as it’s spot on imho.

It would be spot on if Lufthansa actually gave a different answer for those.

I bet you if you call Lufthansa and say "I want to put wireless earbuds in my checked baggage" they will also tell you they need to be switched off.

Except that Lufthansa simply replied by citing a ICAO regulation - no more, no less. They have not "banned AirTags", they simply stated an existing regulation that applies to any aircraft.

Whether they actually enforce that regulation in any way remains to be seen, but they couldn't have given any other answer (or else risk being investigated by civil aviation authorities for not properly observing existing flight safety rules).

If you want to convince anyone that they should allow lithium batteries with some particular characteristics to be used in devices that are not turned on, you don't have to convince Lufthansa or any other airline, you have to convince the ICAO and/or national civil aviation bodies, since it's their rule that Lufthansa was citing.

Please don't spread FUD.

There's no FUD in this comment. It's right on target.

It's FUD because OP cannot possibly know that "This is about them not wanting the public to see". That's pure speculation, and it fits the FUD definition perfectly.

And given that United, for one, gives me the exact same information (as far as I can tell) in their app about the location of my checked luggage as their computers have, it seems unlikely that one of their partner airlines would explicitly scheme to prevent people from knowing where their checked luggage is.

As others have said, this seems a case of AirTags possibly don't comply with long-established rules for checked luggage but, like a lot of the rules for electronics on commercial airplanes, the letter of these rules is broken in various ways probably tens of thousands of times every day.

Dear god, get a grip. Somebody asked Lufthansa specifically about AirTags and this is their response about AirTags based on current regulations. I'm sure if you asked about lithium-based whatever else, you'd get the same answer because the same regulations apply.

Interesting. Since AirTags use standard CR2032 batteries, that means you could swap in an alkaline-based battery and avoid that regulation.

AirTags also have a two way bluetooth radio, which is prohibited: "due to their transmission function"

Where do you get that from? The citation says:

lithium metal

lithium ion cells

batteries

I read the latter part as "lithium ion... cells or batteries".

No, the wording is lithium metal/ion cells/batteries.

It's all cells and batteries that contain lithium.

Wording: "Portable electronic devices containing lithium metal or lithium ion cells or batteries"

It's read as

(Lithium metal or lithium ion) (cells or batteries)

I think they're incorrect, but one would have to read all the regulations carefully to be sure.

I'm basing that judgement on this: https://www.icao.int/safety/DangerousGoods/Documents/Guidanc...

Part 2E makes a battery handling label exception for button cells, quote: "except that button cells installed in equipment (including circuit boards) need not be considered."

While this is packaging guidance, and not airline guidance, I expect it's the same rule, for the same reason.

I'm not super familiar with these systems, but don't they send out beacons using something like Bluetooth Low Energy or some similar protocol? That wouldn't be just passive and turned off unless something external powers it (like NFC could be argued to be).

(Which is not to say that it's therefore a valid argument by this airline, but the title seems accurate if the trackers are sending out signals actively and that's what's prohibited.)

What do you mean "active tracker"? As far as I know airtags have a battery and aren't passive devices.

AirTags doesn’t report its location, the iPhone or other iOS devices report nearby AirTags. That’s the difference between an active tracker that has its own cellular connection.

For aviation regulations there is no different between an active or passive tracker, the rules are not about takers.

The rules are about there being a lithium battery in it (there is) and whether it has a radio transmitter (it does, airtags transmit Bluetooth signals).

Lithium batteries are not allowed in checked baggage. Transmitters are allowed only if turned off.

Lithium button batteries of the size you would find in a tracker are allowed in checked baggage.

You are correct about transmitters though

It's not about the data but about the signal as such.

If Lufthansa doesn't understand the simple meaning of an electronic device it's all the more power for them to get destroyed with this messaging.

Lufthansa gave a non-answer, and there's nothing in their comment suggesting they've banned airtags in checked luggage. They will also have an impossible time enforcing it.

The site "covering this" is focused on creating travel content to push credit card affiliate links. They (like most) benefit from clickbait articles that will get picked up around the web, giving them backlinks to improve SEO ranking for a competitive niche.

Don't the premises "AirTags are only allowed in checked bags if they're turned off" and "AirTags can't be turned off" lead to the conclusion "AirTags aren't allowed in checked bags"?

The battery can be removed.

But you're also not allowed to transport lithium based batteries in checked luggage unless they are inside a powered-off device, I believe.

I think you can as long as they are stored in such a way as to prevent an accidental short circuit.

Per FAA, this is correct. Obviously other jurisdictions may vary

https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/resources/media/Airline_...

Sure. Just like a bazillion other coin cell powered nrf52 devices. Or like a coin cell powered digital watch. Would an F91-W be allowed in checked luggage? Perhaps not, not unless there is a specific exception. And if you ask some policy communication employee, they won't make up exceptions, they'll apply the rules at hand.

AirTags are pretty much active devices, they transmit data all the time. If some iPhone happens to receive that data, iPhone relays it to Apple servers and adds coordinates where it received data.

They are banned: https://twitter.com/lufthansa/status/1578879849577385984

Note that the reason for airport mode is a courtesy to cell-phone carriers. It's not any air safety issue. Rather, 300-500 cell phones all trying to contact the next cell tower, multiple times per minute, would wreak havoc on cell service.

https://www.inverse.com/article/51015-cell-phone-use-on-airp...

At one point, when both cell phones and laptops were new, there was perhaps a risk to the airplane's electronics. Modern cell phones have been steadily tuned to reduce interference with other electronics though - good thing, otherwise you couldn't use them in a modern home with its dozens of connected devices. And modern avionics have been shielded to protect them from outside electronic interference - also a good thing, otherwise the next terrorist could simply turn their laptop on. The ban on electronic transmission is one of those regulations that was a response to technology at a particular point in time but now is largely vestigial. You can tell because it's rarely enforced, and yet bad things do not occur just because you forgot to turn your phone to airplane mode.

luckily this happens all the time since people often forget. i know i do.

> Note that the reason for airport mode is a courtesy to cell-phone carriers.

This doesn’t track. What about trains?

Trains move significantly slower than planes. They're also on the ground, mostly below the towers, while planes are in the air, moving very fast, with multiple towers in line of sight.

It doesn't track in any way. In the airport there's small cells or femtocells by the operators. In the air, the only cells you can reach are the one pointing upwards.

Also, they don't really ask for airplane mode anymore, at least not when I'm flying.

The cell tower network is designed to cope with devices located on the surface of the planet, i.e. where the geometry between the handsets and the tower is roughly two-dimensional.

I am also unconvinced that handsets on aeroplanes are really a problem for the network, but trains aren't the counterexample you're making them out to be.

Flight patterns are also pretty consistent. Tower planners have probably given some thought to it.

That doesn't address the 2 vs 3D problem the person you’re replying to outlined.

Cell towers are designed for terrestrial users because their radios aren’t pointed at the sky.

Gogo provides inflight Wi-Fi in the US through its ground based towers and all the antennas are pointed at the sky :)

Flights (at least in the US) fly roughly a direct route, but ATC spaces out planes and small weather diversions are common. So it’s more like a band of coverage needed between cities. Also, the combinatorics of considering every US city pair that currently or has previously had commercial service between gets long. Then you would have to consider every route that an airline in the future may offer, even just seasonally. Then if you calculated the optimal route between each pair and figured out the width of the cellular coverage at 30,000 ft from a single cell tower below, I don’t think it would be possible to offer service to every domestic flight in the US without achieving complete coverage of the US.

China on the other hand has a limited number of very narrow flight corridors that all commercial aviation is restricted to because the majority of the airspace is government controlled. That’s the only nation I can think of that would have enough air traffic to justify terrestrial tower installation but whose domestic flights are confined to a such a small part of the airspace that it would be possible to provide service to all domestic flights without achieving coverage of all Chinese airspace.

Line-of-sight. If you're 4-5 miles up with no blockers except the aircraft skin, you get to confuse a lot of towers at once.

Must not be very much of an issue since there’s basically zero messaging around what airplane mode is for.

Not once has any of my carriers even said “please turn on airplane mode to help the network”. Instead it’s an in-passing recommendation made by air stewardesses so boilerplate it feels like superstition.

I wonder what the actual impact is and how that relates to the low effort messaging around airplane mode.

You're supposed to put your phone on airplane mode in a train or subway too, but most people don't:

https://pocketnow.com/airplane-mode/

The problem is significantly lessened for trains vs. planes though because you're traveling an order of magnitude slower and hence you switch cells an order of magnitude less frequently. Also many commuter rails run alongside major highways or boulevards, where the cell systems are built assuming lots of cell handoffs at roughly highway speeds. If enough people used high-speed rail to overwhelm the cell system we'd probably see announcements to put phones in airplane mode there too, but very few folks will travel long distances at high speeds on a train.

That article sounds like a bunch of hogwash to me. The CTA in Chicago specifically has cell phone infrastructure in the subway lines, and that predates that article.

https://www.transitchicago.com/cta-to-bring-4g-wireless-serv...

> You're supposed to put your phone on airplane mode in a train or subway too,

That's a pretty insane claim in most of the world. Lots of people expect and enjoy full coverage on train or subway rides. I work at a carrier and the signal strength and cell capacity on trains are part of the top metrics we use to benchmark the quality of our network and the customer experience.

> You're supposed to put your phone on airplane mode in a train or subway too,

Why would you be expected to do this when we don't require drivers to put their phones in airplane mode? I get that US trains are slow compared to other parts of the world, but does the Autobahn require airplane mode? Doubtful since my German car happily connects to my phone in multiple ways.

>> You're supposed to put your phone on airplane mode in a train or subway too,

> That's a pretty insane claim in most of the world.

So is this:

> but very few folks will travel long distances at high speeds on a train.

> If enough people used high-speed rail to overwhelm the cell system we'd probably see announcements to put phones in airplane mode there too, but very few folks will travel long distances at high speeds on a train.

Millions of people travel long distances on trains: 353 million/year on the Shinkansen network, 1.5+ billion/year on China high-speed rail, 110 million on France's TGV. These passengers use their phone without overloading the cell networks.

The operator can just pay for the high speed handover feature license ;)

Cell phone cells are (ideally) shaped to account for the expected pattern of how handover will occur. Along roads and train lines, the cells are (at least in GSM) supposed to be tailored to allow for easy routing and handover as the devices travels in the direction of the way.

While I have never read anything concretely analyzing the handover pattern of devices on airplanes, I would expect that since a very large number of cells are almost equally visible/equal signal strength, the network would have to frequently handover the device from one cell to another.

The handover process is, for voice traffic, very resource intense. (in GSM) it involves duplication of traffic to the neighboring cell and a lot of coordination.

I think that could be the reason for why mobile operators find airplane-borne devices annoying.

Compare the speeds of both modes of transport

And movie theaters, malls, stadiums. Maybe I’m missing something?

If you're in a stadium travelling at 600mph, you have a heck of a problem!

I think the challenge isn't so much "lots of people in one place" as "lots of people travelling extremely fast with line-of-sight to hundreds of cellular towers at the same time".

Most, if not all, of the movie theaters I've been in have been fairly stationary.

Stadiums are actually challenging problems for mobile network builders. That's tens of thousands of people. 300 people in a passing airplane are not a problem. Computers are fast. 3MPH, or 300MPH no longer matters to mobile networks until you actually overwhelm the number of calls/connections you can pack into one place's infrastructure.

I used to live a few blocks from the AA Arena in Miami. I could always tell when a Heat game had just finished because my cell reception would drop to 1 bar or lose connection altogether. Then a few seconds later you'd hear the crowd of people reaching the parking lot right by my building.

Ideally mobile devices in theaters, malls, and stadiums aren't traveling at hundreds of miles an hour with a vantage such that they're in range of multiple towers simultaneously. It used to be (and maybe still is with 5G) that adjacent cells used different channel pairs. That way a handset at the edge of cell A could talk to both cell A and B to negotiate a handoff. Handoffs can happen pretty quickly.

If cells A and F are on the same channel pair and a handset can see both towers the tower the handset is not talking to just has a higher noise floor. It's like in an apartment if the next unit over is on the same WiFi channel.

You'll note that in older generation cell systems theaters, malls, and stadiums were terrible places for cell signals. Now many have micro/nano cells that cover much smaller areas to deal with congestion. Handsets reduce their output power when the received signal strength is better. So a handset will readily talk to a microcell at a stadium rather than try to talk to a tower further away (with a worse signal).

But for planes, hundreds of passengers hitting dozens of towers simultaneously on the same channel pairs would be rough on switching. Carriers need to know where in the network to route messages to handsets. If a handset is handing off to multiple towers quickly or worse hopping seemingly randomly to towers as a jet flies over it'll be difficult to keep it connected. Multiple that by thousands of people in the air at any given time. Areas near busy airports would have absurdly unreliable connections for people in the air and on the ground.

US resident here. What is a train? Those things that move cows, oil, and cars across those rusty bits of metal? I don't think those are suitable for human transportation.

Can we avoid this here and at least have one website where we focus on the technicals and problem being discussed vs. the Americans’ interjecting their current complaints?

Trains are what keep groceries on your shelves. They almost had general strike last week because the drivers only have 5 days a year not working. No weekends, no sick days, etc.

>> I don't think those are suitable for human transportation.

> Trains are what keep groceries on your shelves. They almost had general strike last week because the drivers only have 5 days a year not working. No weekends, no sick days, etc.

Are you trying to disagree? That sounds extremely human-hostile.

If this were a thread on ever declining US education outcomes, this comment would be relevant.

Please, just don’t.

Dude, faux ignorance is rude and anti-conducive to useful conversation; please don't. (Unless, of course, you're sincerely unaware of trains being a widely used mode of transportation even in the States, in which case you're not rude but you should go ask Google to inform yourself.)

Line of sight and curvature of the earth.

At 20 miles out, a device on the ground starts losing line of sight, at 20 miles out, a device on an airplane starts receiving horizontal line of sight.

This. Aloft, your phone sees many, many towers.

Doubly doesn't track as airplane mode is often required during takeoff and landing, which barring controlled or uncontrolled flight into terrain usually happens at the airport, where you and the so many folks taking the same airplane as well as several other airplanes are not required to take their cell phone off as a courtesy to operators.

I can get the EM interference angle just fine, which stays (or stayed until recently) in place as a vestigial CYA rule of a time when cell phones were crude enough to be able to produce a spark which is what makes gas stations display a "no cellphone" sign to this day because back then it could ignite gasoline vapour.

Most trains only go a tenth the speed of planes. And frequently much slower than that if they're making a lot of stops.

Trains aren’t traveling at 400-700 mph ground speed. At best they might be doing 225mph. The rate you pass by towers is thus lower.

Trains also have trees, hills, buildings, earth curvature, etc obstructing how many towers your phone can see. Planes generally have a clear LOS to the tower over a significantly larger area because of the altitude.

If the radiation pattern of the tower wasn’t the shape that it is, the problem would be even worse in fact.

Although there have been some legitimate concerns raised about some 5G bands edging into altitude sensors https://www.icao.int/safety/FSMP/MeetingDocs/FSMP%20WG11/IP/...

I would argue the airlines and airplane manufacturers are far more at fault here.

The fact that aircraft systems are sensitive to frequencies outside their allocation is ridiculous. If literally anyone else was camping on frequency bands they didn't have the rights to the various regulatory bodies would be up in arms.

TLDR; the aviation industry had a decent technical study done on radio altimeter interference from 5G and the FCC determined it didn’t show radio altimeter interference from 5G was likely. Then an aggregated summary of that technical data was shared with an aviation industry group (whose members include radio altimeter manufacturers), and that group used the aggregated data to claim any 5G use would likely lead to catastrophic crashes and multiple fatalities.

As a private pilot and software engineer interested in spectrum policy, I’ve been following this closely for years as it’s wound it’s way through the FAA. I have yet to see any convincing, reproducible evidence that any radio altimeters that are operating within specification (filtering out all signal below 4.2 GHz) have malfunctioned due to interference from 5G cellular signals. The one thing the FAA and airline industry claim as evidence is a study by an industry group (Radio Technical Committee for Aeronautics), whose members include radio altimeter manufacturers who would benefit from large retrofits/upgrades. The RTCA didn’t actually do any of their own testing, they received aggregated data from AVSI, a Texas A&M aerospace research group, which had done a study in 2019 on radio altimeters interference. In 2020 the FCC determined that AVSI study “does not demonstrate that harmful interference would likely result under reasonable scenarios (or even reasonably 'foreseeable' scenarios to use the parlance of AVSI)”. Then, two years later when the FAA went to the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration), which is the agency tasked with managing federal spectrum and agency spectrum disputes, and demanded they stop the FCC from letting carriers turn on networks in the C-band, the NTIA refused because its own technical experts had already evaluated the technical data that RTCA used as evidence that any 5G use of 3.7 GHz - 3.98 GHz band would cause interference severe enough to cause a catastrophic crash resulting hull loss.

Also, when this whole fiasco unfolded neither Verizon or AT&T had spectrum even close to the radio altimeters band. Of the C-band spectrum (3.7 GHz to 3.98 GHz) that was auctioned off a few years ago, only Block A which is between 3.7 GHz and 3.8 GHz was being used. So in addition to the existing, and potentially larger than technically required, 220 MHz guard band between 4.2 GHz (where radio altimeters start) and 3.98 GHz, when the airlines were threatening to cancel service to the US and the FAA was waging a PR war against the FCC the spectrum in question was 3.7 GHz - 3.8 GHz. Even if Verizon and AT&T rolled out 100% of the 5G spectrum they had the ability to use in 2021, it would have meant 5G cell service was within 400 MHz of the radio altimeter spectrum. The entire allocated band for radio altimeters is only 200 MHz (4.2 GHz - 4.4 GHz). Additionally, other countries like Japan have cellular providers operating in 4.0 GHz - 4.1 GHz. Japanese aviation officials (unlike the FAA) actually configured different types of 5G equipment and radio altimeters and tested them, including to see the minimum guard band needed. They found 60 MHz was the minimum guard band needed and therefore the “standard” 100 MHz guard band would be fine. They also found you shouldn’t install 5G towers directly below the approach path of an airport, but that even high powered 5G base stations won’t interfere with radio altimeters if they are 200m away.

I think by far the most comprehensive explainer for this whole saga is by Harold Feld of public knowledge, which if you’re not familiar is a nonprofit advocating for an open internet which includes white papers and FCC testimony on spectrum policy they view as beneficial the public, such as allocating more of the federal government, specifically the military’s, huge bands of essentially unused spectrum. It’s on his personal blog. https://wetmachine.com/tales-of-the-sausage-factory/what-the...

sounds like I’ve been had by Big Altimeter :’)

I would say right about now is when you'd get your bag for helping to create a market for radio altimeters, but I think they exclusively do kickbacks in Spirit Airlines miles.

Sure, but base stations are going to be your main worry there, since they put out way more power than user devices and the antenna of a radio altimeter will be quite directional and pointing down.

I don’t think that’s true, or at least how you worded it is bad. Events of thousands of people don’t make you turn off your cell phone, so it’s not because of traffic to a tower. Instead, it’s interference caused by altitude and the pinging of towers.

It’s actually an FCC regulation that requires it, so it’s not a courtesy as you say.

> I don’t think that’s true, or at least how you worded it is bad. Events of thousands of people don’t make you turn off your cell phone, so it’s not because of traffic to a tower.

First of all, if you've ever been to an event with hundreds or thousands of people (such as a parade or a rally), you'll notice that even though you have "full bars", your service is degraded beyond usability, and you'll receive text messages hours late.

But in this case, the issue is that people's phones will be trying to connect to many different towers in short succession, as the plane travels.

Are you trying to tell me I’m wrong by repeating what I said?

> Instead, it’s interference caused by altitude and the pinging of towers.

> It’s actually an FCC regulation that requires it

I don't believe you. Regardless, I have never used airplane mode on an airplane and I never will.

In 2013 the FCC started a regulatory preceding to evaluate allowing the use of mobile phones on airplanes, because currently there is an FCC regulation prohibiting cellular mobile phone use while a plane is in the air. in 2013 the FCC also said there were no technical reasons to prohibit their use in flight. But the preceding was ended in 2020 with no rule-making because of opposition from pilots and flight attendants.

47 CFR 22.925.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/22.925#:~:text=Cellu....

Thanks, TIL.

I guess I'll continue to ignore that law :)

You don’t follow it so there isn’t an FCC regulation? Cool guy.

"Regardless" implies that I will not follow such a silly law even if it turns out to be real.

I once forgot to put my cell phone in airplane mode during a flight from London to SFO (and didn't use my phone during the flight). I was rather alarmed to see a flood of text messages from my carrier welcoming me to Iceland, Canada, and the US upon my landing.

That sounds... Improbable. When you were passing over Iceland you must have been far too far above the antennas to receive any sort of signal, unless it landed there on the way across the ocean?

Definitely possible, 100%. Can confirm getting texts at 25k feet while not in airplane mode. I was on a flight from JFK->SEA and got welcome to Canada texts above Toronto area.

I too have gotten similar sorts of texts on my last trans-Atlantic flight from DIA to Frankfurt.

Can't speak for Iceland specifically, but can confirm that if you fly from Seattle or Portland down to SFO, you follow a corridor of fairly strong mobile coverage most all the way, and it's occasionally usable at cruising altitude for a moment here and there. Definitely enough to get text messages.

This is in fact the real reason that we still have the airplane mode restriction.

A phone at cruising altitude can see and try to connect to a huge number of cell towers at once. Like, orders of magnitude more towers than it would be able to see even from the top of a mountain. Plus, you're constantly disconnecting from some towers and connecting to new ones. This puts a strain on the cell network systems.

One person won't have a negative impact but then you multiply the problem by the number of people who fly daily.

Being 6 miles up and 8 miles horizontally is only 10 miles from a cellphone tower. As rural cells can easily be more than 20 miles this seems reasonable.

I would think the antennas on cell towers are polarized to limit radiated power up.

They are.

Would that do much for multi path bounces etc?

Depends on the base station. We usually point them down and try to adjust the power output not to "spray" the signal all over the place but rather be focused (and save operator costs), however some stations are set on max power and a lot can bounce away, indeed.

Not so much polarised as aimed. I'm not familiar with 5G (which I believe uses phased array beam aiming), but earlier generations had provision to physically tilt aerials in the vertical plane to optimise beam direction.

Curvature of the earth means that an airplane may be horizontal at 20+ miles out, while a surface vehicle is blocked by ground.

A long time ago when we found out that iPhones were keeping track of where you went, I learned that my phone had associated with some Russian cell towers when I flew over Russia flying from Newark to India, or somewhere like that. It’s highly probable.

I have received messages over Russia (traveling from US to India, 2-3 years back). And I received from one more country that I do not recall. It happens.

I was as surprised as you. We did not land. I do not have an explanation.

This also happens passing over Sydney to Auckland from Singapore.

Yep, flying Sydney to Perth occasionally passes over Adelaide and I’ll notice my phone change Timezone to Adelaide and get a notification or two come through

I have AirTags in a case that is shipped by air a lot (without me being on the same flights) and once I got an updated location in midflight.

The bandwidth required for the initial handshake is very, very, very low. I'm not surprised that in areas with strong enough networks (especially considering there's no visual obstruction towards the skies) that a portion of the connection process would succeed, but it wouldn't be sufficient for anything else (thus the welcome SMSs only arriving far later).

Had the same happen a couple of times on flights to Alaska from the US west coast. Surprised to see messages from Bell Canada

This happens to me, too, particularly when I fly in Asia. I collect screenshots of notifications welcoming me to countries I've never been to.

I went on six flights this summer and on each one at least one person was talking on the phone during takeoff. The flight attendants didn't even say anything. I think this request has passed.

Re: "Rather, 300-500 cell phones all trying to contact the next cell tower..."

That might have been a concern when 2.5G was cutting edge and HLR/VLR databases ran on Sun hardware of the period. Even then, hundreds of updates in a couple seconds was not a huge challenge.

Like a lot of what airlines tell customers, it is a self-serving version of reality, strongly colored for airlines' convenience and deniability.

What's airport mode?

> At one point, when both cell phones and laptops were new, there was perhaps a risk to the airplane's electronics.

There was never any risk. Someone wrote an article in the times suggesting "perhaps" and people freaked out.

There has never been a single instance or study to support this claim. The entire idea airplane mode is a farce.

Actually, a single phone can easily cause a plane to crash.

Source: This is a lie but sitting behind someone on a plane who gets a call is super annoying.

There definitely was theoretical risk with 2G-era mobile phones, which blasted considerable amounts of radiation.

I was in university once doing a signal interference lab: we had set up an circuit and we're trying to induce current in it from another circuit. Suddenly the oscilloscope on the receiving end showed a couple of wild spikes, and I received a text message on my trusty Nokia 1611: apparently 900 MHz was in the sweet spot.

Yeah , my car's radio used to go nutty when my old Cingular flip phone would check in with the network or get a call.

Yep, it was a common sound on PC speakers in the early 2000s: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FYjs7vsaSEw

Oh wow, that brings me back a ways...

Ahhh, memories.

This was a really fun sound when my guitar amp would pick it up

Before landing on the last flight I was on, the flight attendants requested that everyone turn off their phones (even if in airplane mode) due to the weather conditions while landing. Does anyone know what purpose that could possibly serve?

This was in France if that's a relevant clue.

Probably because the pilots were going to be flying an IFR approach. (flying on just instruments through low visibility near the ground, a worst-case scenario for interference being able to cause a fatal crash)

The France clue actually contradicts my guess, because I'm guessing that was an Airbus? Anyways, he's one theory:

Boeing has an issue where its radio altimeters are affected by C-band 5G transmissions. I believe maybe the pilots were relying more on the precision of the altimeter because their vision was impaired due to the bad weather? The whole 'turn off phones' instruction could be because people would follow the unusual request to turn off their phones instead of just telling them to put it in airplane mode (which is so common that some people just don't bother)

I'm pretty ignorant of airplane models, Air France flight but it was a large plane so may have been a Boeing 777.

I think they meant because it's Air France and the EU generally tries to support Airbus (based in Europe) rather than Boeing (based in the U.S.) it seems likely that it is an Airbus aircraft

I understand-- I looked it up, and although they're only buying Airbus going forward, most of their 10-across fleet is still 777: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_fleet

Last flight I had from SFO->CDG was on a Boeing 737-800. AirFrance doesn't mean it's always Airbus.

If SFO is supposed to mean San Francisco and CDG Paris then certainly not. The max range of a 737-800 is about 50% of the distance.

It’s a 777

You're correct. Here's the plane we took: 777-300ER

https://us.trip.com/flights/status-af084/

They didn't mention it was AirFrance in their origninal comment, and when they said "in France", I assumed an intra-France flight. Many regional & LCC carriers in Europe operate Airbus planes exclusively.

I’d interpret this as a “pay attention and be ready” rather than something from the phone itself.

Probably so that if there was an issue people are paying attention and not screwing around on their phones/listening to music

Interference can be a serious problem for autoland https://avherald.com/h?article=445873f3/0001

Whether electronic devices inside the plane are such problem I don't know.

It's because they want people to be attentive if shit hits the fan during landing. Being attentive make you respond faster if you need to evacuate.

Switching your phone transmitter off is technically required by FCC regulations: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-B...

Realistically there isn't an issue with leaving a cell phone on and out of airplane mode going purely based on how many people forget or ignore the directions everyday and how infrequently there are problems. But I'll make two points:

The idea that a cell phone transmitter can interfere with an airplane is by no means outrageous. Sure, a modern iPhone/Pixel/whatever has to meet certain emissions and interference standards. And modern airliners are designed with some interference rejection in mind. And ancient airliners from the 70s don't rely on a lot of electronic systems at all. As for airplanes designed in the 90s, well it's not silly to ask whether 200 people with 1W transmitters would interfere with the electronic systems. A properly functioning compliant phone shouldn't, but there's still some risk. Incidents do happen, though they are generally minor. I was on an airplane that had to abort a landing and go-around because they couldn't hear the tower over cellphone interference (voice comms are analog). Obviously no one died, but we were still delayed a bit.

It probably makes sense to relax the rules, but it is incredibly frustrating to see the attitude of "if they don't force me to turn it off it must be OK". The FCC requires you to turn off transmitters to avoid interference. The airline asks you to do so for the same reason. Experts in the field (myself included) are telling you there's a small risk and you should hit the airplane mode button. There's zero benefit to keeping your cellular service active in flight at all. But everyone's seen some article on Facebook (or in this case inverse.com) that says maybe there's a big conspiracy and everyone's lying to them. So they take a risk (albeit an extremely small one) with the lives of 200 other people. For no gain at all.

So do whatever you want, there's nothing I can do about human nature, but believe me when I tell you there's no government conspiracy to make you press the little airplane button funded by the cell phone companies. Yeah, the risk is probably negligible - it's just really hard to prove it and easier to make a small ask of passengers.

A few airlines (Etihad is one that comes to mind) operate mini cells on the plan and you can roam on a local 4G network and makes calls/use data. If I recall correctly it’s switched off on takeoff and landing but you can definitely use your phone on these flights.

> It probably makes sense to relax the rules,

I suppose this issue will actually fix itself with the advent of cheap Internet onboard the plane via WiFi, which combined with VoWiFi, will effectively switch cell off automatically when connected. People are more likely to use free WiFi onboard than to voluntarily remember to switch the Airplane Mode on.

Most places Lufthansa flies are not within the FCC’s jurisdiction.

The term airplane mode will persist as an anachronism forever. Some day we will have to explain to our grandchildren why disabling networks has anything to do with airplanes.

“Grandpa, what’s an airplane?”

“Well Nancy, before instant interdimensional travel…”

Imagine physically traveling through a medium. I only transmit my bits instantaneously and get reconstructed on the other side.

My most frequent use of the airplane mode, is when I go underground on metro systems, which I find pretty ironic.

(Without Airplane Mode, the phone will keep trying to connect to cellular towers, which just makes the network experience unstable)

Perhaps "Underground Mode" would be more suitable in a modern context /s

Isn't an unstable network experience better than no network experience?

Not if you're conserving battery life I suppose..

Depending on what you're doing. Many apps that reach out to the internet at launch will hang if there's an unstable connection, but will recognize when there's no connection and open in an offline mode.

Not for apps like Audible which (this is my guess based on personal experience) prevents you from doing anything if you seem to have connectivity but can’t get a real response. Offline mode is simply more stable, unless you need to sync status from another device.

Audible is terrible for this. The parking lot at work is situated juuuust right to the point that when I'm leaving the office, my phone thinks its connected but has no actual connectivity. Audible sits there trying to sync the storefront and whatever else instead of just playing my damn book when I turn on my car to leave for the day.

A lot of apps have cached experiences that they'll only show you if you have no network connection. If the app detects a very weak LTE connection, it'll try to load data over the network. That means that on a weak connection, I often end up being served nothing, rather than the data that's already cached on device.

As a tangent, I feel that a lot of these problems are fundamentally because engineers don't understand how poorly their software performs on unstable networks. Unless you live in a large metropolitan area with a well used underground transit network (in the USA, I suppose NYC would be the only qualifying city... sigh), you'd likely never experience these symptoms on a daily basis.

...or you live in a dense suburb where they never bothered to put up towers, or a rural area where towers are more scarce, or any where that you have to go in a building without wifi..

I don't honestly believe many developers don't experience this a lot. It's probably just such a transitory experience that it's not worth the rearchitecting required to really solve it.

I’d believe they don’t experience it at their desks at work. And they probably aren’t often thinking about work when they’re at home or visiting rural areas.

If I “download” music for offline listening in Spotify, in the highest possible quality, and I attempt to listen to that music on a unstable network, the app will not work. It will wait for me to completely lose the connection before playing the cached files. Have noticed similar bugs existing in other software

> Unless you live in a large metropolitan area with a well used underground transit network

Or anywhere more than ~50km from the nearest town. I dunno what coverage is like in the U.S. but in parts of Australia it’s not uncommon to lose reception when country driving.

I find that my music/video streaming apps work a lot better with no network than with an unstable network.

In my experience, no not at all, as it causes my phone to drain its battery exceptionally fast while it thrashes the modem in a frantic search for signal.

Yes! I don't know why nobody talks about this. If I don't go into airplane mode, half of my daily battery drain is from two half-hour trips in the underground subway. It's insane.

By far, my #1 wish for my iPhone would be a mode to basically "detect subway networks constantly changing" and just give up trying. Like, if it observes all cell and wifi networks disappearing entirely together with movement... then totally new ones appearing... every 45 seconds... just stop. And wait passively until there's some kind of heuristic indicating you're above ground, before trying to establish new connections with everything.

Obviously make this optional, but I turn on airplane mode every time I enter the subway and turn it off after I leave, just so I don't have to worry about running out of battery during the day otherwise in case I take 3-4 trips.

Very good ideas! As hobby I like to automate mundane tasks. I’m applying a similar approach by using iPhone Shortcuts app. See https://twitter.com/xiwenc/status/1578670843584204801?s=46&t... for how i did it by automatically turning off/on low power mode, wifi, etc. Perhaps you’re inspired by it.

It drains the battery really quickly in my experience. On my (admittedly old) iphone a 30 minute subway journey without airplane mode will drain about 10%.

Also even if i'm listening to music I have downloaded locally, Apple Music will do a system-wide popup complaining that it lost cellular connection. Sometimes in Safari a webpage that was downloaded at the station will suddenly erase itself and attempt to refresh itself upon losing connection. Those are usually the kinds of ad-ridden sites that are making nonstop ajax calls, but sometimes that's what i'm reading.

"Isn't an unstable network experience better than no network experience?"

Yes, you would think ... but that is not the case.

QA and design of modern mobile apps and software - and even devices and appliances - neglects the testing of bad network connectivity.

Both my physical Sonos devices and, for instance, the apple-provided podcasts app, can handle being fully offline reasonably well. On the other hand, if you start dropping ~50% of packets they lose their mind and (in the case of Apples podcast app) freeze or crash.

In the Hong Kong MTR (subway) mobile phones work just fine. I was shocked when I couldn't get a connection in the London tube.

In DC as well, Verizon strung the tunnels with base stations. I get better cellular data on the subway than I do at home.

“Do do you know why radio silence on cell phones is called Airplane Mode?”

‘Because of the long historical association of activating that mode on airplane flights?’

“Well, yeah, but, like, it’s actually anachronistic, because it doesn’t really affect the airplane anymore if you’re transmitting.”

‘Okay, but, I mean, it is the mode that, even today, in 2060, most commonly comes up when you’re on a pla—‘

“Look, I was just trying to sound wise. Just let me have this one.”

My iPad is forever in airplane mode. That way I can turn wifi off without iOS automatically turning it back on 24 hours later.

If you turn off wifi from settings instead of the control center (top right corner pull), it will stay turned off. If you turn it off from the control center, it will indeed say "Turning off WiFi until tomorrow".

Can you at least get from Control Center to the corresponding Settings page easily now (long press, hard press, etc), or is Apple dying on that hill?

Can only check on iphone, but long press on wifi, then again on wifi on the subsequent menu (where you can select which network to connect to) has “wifi settings” at the bottom.

> Can you at least get from Control Center to the corresponding Settings page easily now (long press, hard press, etc)

You can, just long press the wifi icon in control center, it will expand to show all wifi points nearby. Then click on "settings" button, and it will take you to the actual wifi settings page in the settings app.

This isn't a recent change btw. Idk when they added it, but I remember using it since at least iOS 13 or 14, which was 2-3 years ago.

Wow, this is amazing, thank you for sharing this! This was annoying me for years.

Yes, but it's much easier to turn it on/off from control center, so I just have to leave it in airplane mode.

True. As an alternative, I personally just created a one-action shortcut for turning off wifi and assigned it to the double backtap action[0]. So i dont even need to look at the screen anymore or go into any menus. I just do a double backtap, and wifi stays turned off until i need it (same as doing it from the settings).

If you want, you can also just add that shortcut to lockscreen as well and do it via a single tap from there (which is also less clicks than even control center).

0. https://support.apple.com/guide/shortcuts/run-shortcuts-tapp...

Nice shortcut, thanks! I do love shortcuts. :)

It only turns back on 24 hours later if you turn it off from Control Center. If you go to Settings > Wi-Fi, it will turn off permanently.

That and the same with Bluetooth is something that really grinds my gears with apple

My only gripe is wifi calling doesn’t work in airplane mode in iPhones otherwise I would perpetually keep them in airplane mode at home.

Well, maybe. My kids seem to have taken it for granted that clicking on that weird square thing that we know as a floppy disk icon saves their work, somewhere. I don't think they ever asked why that symbol.

It'll be in good company with dialing, film, photograph, watching the tube, etc.

Actually photograph was already out of date, because graph had morphed from "to write" to making any kind of image. Which itself I believe meant something akin to inscription /engraving.

Actually while photograph may no longer be a graph as in image on a surface, in some ways it's still an image impressed on rocks. Made using lithography. Have we gotten closer to its roots?

-graph effectively means recording, storing, so photograph is still very much valid and will forever be.

Yup, "photograph" is literally "light recording".

Yes, both γράφω (>graph) and English write seem to have "scratch, carve" as earliest senses.

Don't forget floppy disks being enshrined as the Save icon - that has to be one of the shortest lives devices to give rise to such an anachronism.

And the fact that at that point they weren't even floppy anymore. Like 5 or 8 inch were...

The typical icon looks like 3.5", and inside the housing the disk is pretty floppy. In contrast to hard disk platters, which derive their name from the internal mechanism, not the housing properties. Otherwise they would be called storage bricks or similar.

I always kinda found that as a copout. Just so to keep using same name.

"And the fact that at that point they weren't even floppy anymore. Like 5 or 8 inch were..."

No, they were all floppy. You are just thinking of the hard plastic case that 3.5" diskettes had. If you crack it open and disassemble it, the actual spinning disk is just as floppy as the 5.25" was.

This is as opposed to a "hard" disk which is a hard platter inside a fixed disk.

I'm seeing various products switch to Cloud-related save icons, e.g. upload arrows, arrows going into a cloud, etc.

Maybe it's more complexity than needed, but I'd love to see us settle on arrow-to-cloud meaning "Save any changes" and the floppy icon meaning "Save a copy to my machine."

I remember using a Nokia phone long ago that didn't have an aeroplane mode. It was simply called "offline".

> Rather, 300-500 cell phones all trying to contact the next cell tower, multiple times per minute, would wreak havoc on cell service.

I'm probably being a simpleton, but this sounds like inadequate firmware to me. At the very least: Airtags have GPS, so shut them off when they are at $ALTITUDE.

They don't appear to have GPS. Rather they contact local Apple devices over Bluetooth, and those devices know where they are. But then they don't have cellular access either, so this discussion is moot.

I mean, let's think this all can work.

You turn it off at $ALTITUDE. When do you turn them on ? There's no button and it is powered off.

Users benefit, too. You phone uses a lot more power when trying to connect to all those towers.

I’m a bit skeptical, bullet trains swamp towers too, they just put more towers along the tracks.

For bullet trains, it's worth to invest for train users. For airplane, it isn't.

If there was ever a shade of a possibility that a cellphone or other electronic device could interfere with the operation of an aircraft, they'd never even let you take anything like that onboard.

The whole "turn off your devices" thing is more about validating compliance and making people pay attention during the most incident-prone times of flight (takeoff and landing)

The cat is out of the bag.

There is no way that people are going to stop putting AirTags in their luggage, at least not while airlines are still constantly losing luggage and fighting people on reimbursement.

I do see how they'd find it bothersome. Imagine what it must be like that the situation before was: "Oh no my baggage is lost!" "Oooh that's rough! We'll let ya know!" then nothing.

Where now what it might be like is: "Oh no my baggage is lost at XYZ airport at your terminal" and that accountability is somewhat forced now because they can't just say it wasn't found or it is 'in transit' when it really isn't.

So inconvenient for them to do what they were contracted to do: fly you and your luggage from A to B. Can’t they just get free money?

You might get money for your troubles if your flight or luggage is delayed. For luggage being lost the maximum liability is $3,800 for domestic flights and about $1,800 for international flights

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/19/what-travelers-need-to-know-...

In theory yes, but in practice it could easily cost you more to deal with the airline and it might well be that you don’t have the receipts anymore.

With another European airline I recently waited exactly one day less than the three weeks required for them to deliver a child seat. That’s almost three weeks of not having one to safely transport my child, no support or compensation. Since I was returning to my country of residence the credit card company also didn’t refund.

> and it might well be that you don’t have the receipts anymore.

That seems pretty unlikely; the receipts now go to your email where you'd have to delete them intentionally.

Cash? Clothes? I don’t keep receipts for every pair of jeans I own.

Receipts for the personal items that the airline lost, not for the airfare. You need to prove how much your damages are in order to make a claim.

Is there anything to stop me from pulling receipts for something I didn’t actually put in my luggage?

Your damages are what you had to spend on all the new items you had to buy for your trip, to replace the items they failed to deliver. You buy new clothes (etc), keep the receipts, and turn those in for reimbursement. At least this is how it worked a decade ago when my luggage was "lost" for a US domestic flight.

In my case, I think they deliberately bumped my bag for paying cargo, because they saw my billing address was near the destination airport and assumed I would be fine "at home". They didn't know I was going to a wedding, and that said wedding was several hours drive away, so delivering my bag a day late to the destination airport wouldn't end the problem. They still paid out though.

aobdev's idea of reimbursement doesn't work in either direction. The price you paid for something is only weakly connected to the thing's current value. But your damages are equal to whatever the current value is. If you bought a painting for $20 and it's appreciated to $15,000, you're owed $15,000 when someone destroys it. If you bought a suit for $2,000 and it's more moth-hole than cloth and it's been through a few paintball fights, you're not owed $2,000 when someone destroys it.

There’s an easy solution: the airline automatically owes the maximum amount. This would save everyone much time and put some burden back with the airliner (by potentially paying more than the customer had, though at around USD 1800 it should be quite even, especially once you consider the time spent to get your money back)

You already need to insure higher values anyway if you want to be entitled to a reimbursement, so this would set a nice minimum that encourages customer friendly behavior.

> That’s almost three weeks of not having one to safely transport my child, no support or compensation.

Why not just buy a new one and charge the airline for it?

Charge... how?

Small claims court?

Who has time for that?

Also at least in Germany you risk the costs with no compensation for taking that risk.

At least in the US they have to repay you for items purchased to temporarily replace items in delayed luggage- subject to reasonable costs and a total limit.

They won't compensate you unless the luggage hasn't been delivered within three weeks. Even then they'll put up a battle and make you go through a bunch of forms and hotlines, request receipts that you might not have anymore etc.

For a baby car seat, probably not worth it. For other things it might be but the receipt is missing etc.

At the end it's a damage you have to face for them not doing their job right.

Every job, every person, every industry mistakes happen. You can minimise them with better systems but its never going to disappear

The ones that don't suck are happy if you can help them fix their error, though.

Don't bother us, we're trying to help you.

You can minimise them by making mistakes expensive.

Yes. But not every industry gets the benefit of a nationally legislated liability limit on their mistakes.

You're thinking of the frequent flyer programs. An airline, via its FF program, is a proprietary central bank that sometimes flies people (and occasionally, even their luggage!) from A to B.

Didn’t really understand that until I read an article about it.

The frequent flyer program is oftentimes worth more than the airline, and it’s a currency with no rules where the airline can do pretty much whatever they want with its value. It’s insane.

Oh no! Our management/efficiency consultants have value engineered our labor practices to the point of extreme fragility!

Maybe hiring more McKinsey consultants can fix it!

My heart breaks for them. They have to do the job they should have been doing in the first place.

How is it bothersome? People are doing their job and telling them where the bag is. They should be happy when customers go the extra mile to fix their broken system.

It’s not broken for them.

FWIW I showed an AA baggage customer service rep the location of my bag (within 200ft of where we were standing), the response I got was, “that’s nice, we’ll get you your bag when we get you your bag” - so while it’s nice to know where your bag is, the airlines will continue to not care until there are financial consequences for not delivering as promised.

I'd call the police in that situation

So they can take a report?

So they can ignore the call entirely

AA is the worst. I would be here all day if I were to explain all the things they did on a single flight, NY to Akron. I rented a car and drove home, so not to expose myself to that again. Have not flown AA since.

Now JetBlue codeshares with AA. Worried.

I get that it's inconvenient and could be used nefariously. I'm not sure what kinds of worker protections airline staff have in Europe, but I can see why it might be problematic that I'm tracking the employee as they drive their van full of lost luggage to my hotel.

Still, it's my stuff, so I'm going to keep putting AirTags in every bag I travel with. I'm sorry, but.. what are they going to do? Ban me from the airline?

I don’t see why it’s problematic to see where your bag is. The employee isn’t driving from their home with your luggage- and if they were, there are bigger problems.

You have a point where he may make multiple stops which may include the personal addresses of folks also on your flight. But I can’t imagine you have enough ability to match a person with an address this way.

> at least not while airlines are still constantly losing luggage

Does that actually happen to people still? I thought it was just a 90s meme. I get a push notification every time they move my bag anywhere. 'Accepted into the system', 'loaded onto the plane', 'unloaded off the plane', 'popped out at the carousel'. Seems pretty bullet proof these days.

American Airlines self-reported a baggage mishandling rate just short of 1% this year. That seems really high to be honest, when you consider that most planes have a minimum of 150 passengers.

2022 was an anomalous year since the airlines ramped up their schedules without having support staff at the airports to handle it. The statistics seem to indicate a tripling of lost luggage rates.

For international trips this is close to 10%.

My math professor is flying once a month to Europe from the US for the past 20 years. He told me about this statistic he built from his trip history and I thought he was exaggerating.

On my 10th trans-Atlantic trip of course I lost my luggage.

So on a typical 747 flight 40 people will have their luggage lost when we get to the reclaim? That seems really improbably high. How come I don't see hundreds of people standing around getting angry at the belt?

At Heathrow, it'd mean 20,000+ people a day with lost luggage (if they all checked luggage). You'd need more than the entire taxi fleet of London to get their luggage to their hotels.

Really doesn't pass a common-sense check.

Bags are lost often enough there’s a charity selling the bags that never get claimed.

https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/pages/how-it-works

They say a 3 month search, but if you read around you’ll see 5+ days and your bag is basically gone. They say .03% of all checked bags end up lost and then unclaimed. How many must get lost to reach that unclaimed number?

It could be as high as 10% if you have a connecting flight, maybe? I’ve been fortunate enough to always fly direct and never had any lost baggage. I’ve always assumed direct is fine, it’s once you start transferring loads across different flights and codeshare carriers it starts to do awry.

Two "nines." Not acceptable in most products/services.

https://news.sky.com/story/heathrow-asks-airlines-to-cancel-...

It still happens. In a lot of cases they find it and go through some efforts to deliver the luggage to where you’re staying.

> through some efforts to deliver the luggage

I was in Greece once dealing with lost luggage. The airline threw it on a ferry and told me to run on and look/grab my bag when it got to the island I was on. I guess that’s some effort lol

And, this time I had AirTags in my bags which ended up being super useful for tracking.

It's been a big issue in the UK for the last few months, as airports struggled to find enough baggage handlers. So luggage was getting left all over, massive buildups, effectively "lost" until they have enough manpower to process it all.

Nah. They didn’t have issues finding baggage handlers. They couldn’t find enough baggage handlers for the low wage they were offering.

Asia and the US have a much better track record than Europe. Like, your bag is 5-8x more likely to get lost in Europe.

It’s happened enough to me flying intl, that I refuse to check now. One time FinAir lost my bags for so long, I was thinking they were gone forever.

It happens and just like the meme they drive it hours to you once found, even across states. Just happened my sister and brother in law who had trained to another state by the time theirs was found.

I visited Germany in July. At the time Frankfurt airport was a huge mess.

https://newsrnd.com/business/2022-07-08-travel-chaos--5-000-...

Edit: improved source and removed misleading numbers from previous article

Antidotally my personal delayed luggage rate is about 15% (~100 segments a year, checking bags on about 1/5th of those)

I'm not sure what airlines you're flying with, but I've never gotten any notifications like this - in the US or Europe.

United does it, for example. You need the app. I'm sure other airlines do it as well?

AA does.

Huh. In the last few weeks I've travelled with AA, Southwest, Ryanair, Aer Lingus and Lufthansa, and never got any baggage updates in their apps.

Maybe it’s only at specific airports? I was notified in the app

> at least not while airlines are still constantly losing luggage and fighting people on reimbursement.

Hah, if you're in the United States you should be fine. Federal law forces the airlines to reimburse you, even for just delayed baggage [0].

Last year my bag was delayed a few days on a trip to the mountains. My airline paid the cost to replace all of the clothing and other material in my bag. I think it ended up being ~$2100 worth. I bought items comparable to what I had brought, e.g. a lot of high-quality thermal clothing, some board games, chargers, etc, and I got to keep all of it.

[0]: https://www.transportation.gov/lost-delayed-or-damaged-bagga...

Just wait until an airtag lithium battery catches fire in the cargo hold.

AirTags use lithium button cells which are not really a fire risk when compared to a lithium polymer cell like in your cell phone.

Enough of a mitigated safety risk that the CR2032 that the AirTag uses is small enough to be exempted from the lithium battery rules.

I’ve got a friend who is doing a lot of travel to Russia due to her father having some medical problems, so I bought her an AirTag for her luggage.

On her first flight home, she missed her flight, but her luggage “made it.” She was able to track the bag all the way to the American West Coast, and apparently the workers at the airport even found it helpful in the “last mile” of retrieving the bag.

On her second flight, Lufthansa lost the bag on a flight to Helsinki. They were apparently huge dcks about it, but again she was able to accurately track and eventually retrieve it.

AirTags are one of those devices that really surpass their advertised usefulness. I’m encouraging everyone I know who travels to get some.

I do wonder about the workers who must be getting those automated “yo a tracker is following you” anti-stalking messages on their iPhones, though.

This is going to have the opposite of their intended effect. People are now going to be more interested than ever in AirTags precisely for luggages thanks to them.

Bingo! It hadn't occurred to me until just now, but you bet your butt there'll be an Airtag, a Trackr, and a Tile in my luggage next time.

Me too.

Trackr has been gone since 2021.

Can't you track them down?

Not that they were ever to useful in the first place, sadly.

It’s honestly so nice!

I land, and before I check my texts I check for my bags.

They have almost always already been reported to the find my network and I have peace of mind.

Even at the baggage carousels. I just activate “Find” and it tells me if my bag is “near by” and rarely it’ll even give me the arrow pointing at my luggage.

I didn’t even realize that I was previously micro-stressing about this stuff. But I can definitely tell the change I’ve had in mental state with an AirTag in my luggage.

And with that, I’ve ordered AirTags for my luggage. Thank you kind stranger!

It's seriously such an underrated technology. The fact that there are billions of devices spread out all over the world that can suddenly spring into action to precisely locate my item any time is so crazy to think about. All for a $29 one-time purchase. And I get the sense most people don't even know this exists.

Agree! When AirTags were announced I immediately bought 4 just for luggage tracking. The first trip I used them on our bags were lost. As we took off from Boston, I could see our bags were still on the other side of the airport. Since I already knew the bags were lost when we landed, we could go right to the baggage person. I was able to tell the person right where they were which sped the process up. Then, when they were finally delivered, the AirTags saved a bunch of time/stress knowing when/where to meet the delivery.

This is called the Streisand Effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Given the top comment I'm not sure this had an intended effect. They were asked a question and quoted the relevant ICAO rules. What were you expecting them to do? Urge their customers to break the law?

I was able to determine that someone with the exact same bag had taken mine from baggage claim and retrieve it from them before they left the airport with it. We both had much better vacations as a result. I’m going to keep mine in my luggage, sorry.

Why would you stop? I highly doubt they’ll invest in the means to actually stop it across every airport.

what a joke, I guess that's one way to deal with their terrible luggage handling.. I've been now waiting since a flight on August 20th to receive my "lost" luggage from them. I guess policy like this is easier than fixing the actual issue.

The only update I've gotten is this email two weeks ago, their hotline and website are completely useless. Via DeepL

> Good day,

> We apologize that you have not yet received your luggage and for the inconvenience this has caused. We regret that we are currently unable to meet our standards for a smooth travel experience.

> Why are there delays?

> There are currently massive logistical and personnel failures and bottlenecks worldwide, which are delaying baggage handling in particular. The world of flying is highly interconnected. We are dependent on our global partners here and are thus confronted with numerous challenges.

> We are working hard to ensure that all delayed baggage is delivered within the coming weeks.

> If you would like to check the baggage status yourself, please use the baggage status page only. Our telephone service centers will not be able to assist with any questions regarding your baggage.

> Kind regards

> Your Lufthansa Team

luggage this summer in europe has been a mess. air france lost my bag in paris on june 12 and has neglected to compensate me or return it. no way to get a hold of anyone who can do anything either-- left me wishing i had put an airtag in there myself.

> luggage this summer in europe has been a mess.

Not just this summer. Europe has been worse than worldwide since at least 2018.

You’d think they’re stuck in a luggage area and airtags would help you hasten them getting to you? Not sure how it’d solve a logistics problem that is not yours but the airline’s. Thinking further I think the airlines should stick their own air tags on luggage while in transit and get it back when customer picks up their luggage (could be a deposit based system). This would help them automatically track all luggage.

We could create a affiliated but a 3rd party bounty hunter business :)

Ok, I lost my luggage in Brussels, provide the "bounty hunter" my information (i.e., location), give them a legal authorization, and they go claim my baggage from where it is stuck, and help it move to where it needs to be.

Of course it will not be straightforward, but if we can make it happen with one airline, maybe others will follow.

Of course the name will not be a bounty hunter service, but something that is more marketing driven.

> You’d think they’re stuck in a luggage area and airtags would help you hasten them getting to you?

Absolutely! Look at the photos in https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-61848486 and imagine trying to find your bag without a tracker in that mess.

It would help that one person, but the airport and airline need to process all those bags.

Time spent searching for one bag is better spent sending 15 bags on their way.

Usually the handling of luggage is not by air france (or other carrier), it is the specific airport personnel, so called "ground-services".

Most airports cut down personnel due to Covid-19 and when the amount of flights quickly ramped up to previous (or possibly higher than before) levels couldn't manage (or did not want) to find/hire/re-hire enough personnel.

When this happens, the luggage is normally stored in a hangar or other warehouse at the airport, far from passenger traffic, and with access reserved to these ground service personnel, so the most you would get with an airtag (if any of the personnel has an iPhone) is that your luggage still exists in a place which you cannot have access to, no way to collect it.

“ Lufthansa claims that the transmission function needs to be turned off during flight when in checked luggage, just as is required for cell phones, laptops, etc.”

On my phone, turning on airplane mode seems to disable the cell and wifi radios (with wifi able to be toggled back on) but Bluetooth defaults to staying on.

Indeed; and there's no problem with half of a plane using Bluetooth headphones during the flight, either.

I don't think this move by Lufthansa has much to do with engineering :)

It's a bullshit excuse and they know it. Lufthansa even has on-board WiFi on their planes. How are you going to use it if your laptop is supposed to have "transmission function" turned off?

They just don't want people to have proof they've lost their luggage.

Yeah that is... a non argument by Lufthansa -- i will be polite. (Resources: Here is for FAA, EU ruling is similar: https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/ped/ — check the FAQ also.)

They technically can -— the best kind of can I guess —- but it is not in the spirit of course of ILS interference (@108-112 MHz) with Bluetooth at 2.45 GHz and extremely low range. Hell the pilot is likely to have their iPad with Bluetooth on during all plane operations.

FAA expects to be communicating with mature individuals and entities and not this in their guidelines.

With the same thinking they can ban pacemakers and all cordless headphones, and …breathing. Good luck to Lufthansa. They just declared their baggage handling sucks.

It also sounds incredibly dumb when you think about how checked luggage gets scanned and searched. Isn't it typically after you've dropped it off with airline staff and have walked away towards a terminal gate? And when they find an airtag in checked luggage, how can they tell by looking at the airtag itself if "transmission function" has been turned off???

It seems to me they either have to throw away all airtags they find in luggage, or they have to check everyones' phones inside the airplane before they take off, or they're just bluffing.

>throw away all airtags

I have no doubt that they'll do exactly this. They'll likely stick them into an RF-blocking pouch first, then destroy them all. You won't get it back, you won't get any compensation, and they'll point to their policies as to why.

You’re aiming to project maximum evil. While emotionally satisfying, it does not usually have good predictive powers. What you should be doing is to predict maximum laziness instead. As in, they will probably only destroy airtags inside a particular luggage when they know that the luggage is already lost and it would be embarrasing for them if its location was known.

But it records last known position. Logically they should put it in some else's luggage that is being picked up, thereby sending you on a wild goose chase.

But that would entail more work.

I consider Lufthansa a pretty evil company, but I still doubt they will open your luggage and then destroy your personal property.

Apple could add a pressure sensor and disable transmission while in the air. Yes, might be not working for Tahoe or Mexico City but work in most places.

Why would doing that be in Apple's interest? Also, consider that the air pressure in airline cabins is about the same as it is on the ground in Santa Fe, NM.

Can't help but think any "disable" function would be used by thieves to steal stuff.

Huh, I'd have assumed (and remembered?) that airplane mode turned off all transmission, but I suppose with the huge increase in Bluetooth headphones that would be quite inconvenient, so maybe it was changed.

IATA guidance is "Any tracking device with a transmitting function must automatically shut down when inside the aircraft." The cargo tracker industry has already dealt with this. Cargo trackers are usually GSM devices with GPS receivers. Those have to turn themselves off when in flight, and that seems to be working OK.[1]

For low-power devices that don't turn off, there's DO-160() Section 21 Cat. H evaluation [2]. This is the EU standard for equipment intended for use aboard aircraft. Emissions must be very low for that.

Apple AirTags emit a ultrawideband signal for location, and use low-energy Bluetooth for local communication. Whether that can pass Category H evaluation (the toughest spec, OK next to an antenna) or even Category M evaluation (inside the cabin) is a good question. Not sure about UWB.

[1] https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/the-agency/faqs/cargo-tracking...

[2] https://do160.org/emission-of-radio-frequency-energy/

It’s almost as if Lufthansa are admitting they are a terrible airline with awful practices like silently cancelling the return leg of flights if you don’t make the outbound. This happened to me on the way back from Germany, I can’t imagine they still do this but I found them extremely unhelpful and this sort of behaviour reinforces my feeling they think you’re lucky to be travelling with them.

> like silently cancelling the return leg of flights if you don’t make the outbound

I don't know about the "silently" part, but this is standard practice for most (all?) airlines.

It’s immoral and illegal in Europe but sure quite a few airlines still try this on.

I've never before heard that this is illegal in Europe and haven't found anymore info after some quick searching. Do you have anymore information about this?

They’ve been successfully sued under the consumer rights act 2015 (an EU law).

Do you have a link with more info about this case?

Many airlines do this. Lufthansa did it to me last year. They are usually accommodating if you ask in advance (mine was due to a connecting flight being canceled and driving the last leg was much faster than waiting for the next flight).

It’s actually illegal for them to do this without refunding you in Europe but a lot of airlines just ignore the law on this it seems.

This was the US. EU passenger rights are so awesome.

These rights hardly work, at keast Lufthansa doesnt care and good luck going to courts for your rights. Not worth the paper these laws are written on.

Lufthansa does not bother with those EU laws.

They cancel flights, put up signs that seek your own hotel & transport and after that they do not give any contact.

Last leg of my flight was cancelled in airport and they closed all service desks, because there were too many people who needed help...

Over three months and still haven't got human reply from my hotel & flight reimbursement. 4000 eur still missing from Lufthansa for what I had to pay hotels & new flights. They only reimbursed cancelled leg/unused tickets for my group, so 4x100 eur...

Total scam company.

Similar experiences with Lufthansa. Using legal mechanism yourself it's an uphill battle, you could use something like airhelp if your flight got cancelled/delayed for long.

Regarding reimbursements they can't help, I'm waiting myself one from April and one from June. One flight hotels (police told passengers to leave airport and pay for hotels), other lost luggage. Impossible to get any information from Lufthansa after I sent my bills and demands.

What in the world are you talking about? It's perfectly legal. In fact, you're technically not even allowed to skip the second leg of your ticket. Lufthansa has sued people for doing this as well: https://pointmetotheplane.boardingarea.com/lufthansa-sues-th... That one is a little more questionable but it is still indeed against the fare rules to intend to not fly all of the segments.

There is, however, an exception for tickets issued in specifically Italy. See https://www.godsavethepoints.com/european-airline-ticket-loo... It's still not "illegal" for them to not refund you, and most airlines just accept the fines from the Italian authorities.

Lufthansa and other airlines have also been sued for this practice and lost. I guess it depends on the case but it seems ridiculous, if I leave my starter at a restaurant they then refuse to deliver dessert and yet charge me for it! Clearly that is bonkers and illegal and the exact same thing. Read the 2015 EU consumer rights act for details…

Can you offer any citation on losing cases for the practice (other than specifically in Italy, which I'll explicitly note is surprising)?

Also what is the "2015 eu consumer rights act"? The closest thing I can find is "The Consumer Rights Act 2015," which "is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom." It is neither EU-wide nor does it seem to have anything about airline tickets.

Typically when people talk about EU air regulation they are talking about "EU regulation 261/2004" which also has nothing to do with what you're talking about.

You seem to just be spouting nonsense here. Finally, in the restaurant case, you do not agree to a discounted set course in exchange for finishing all of the portions of the meal. If you want the flexibility, PAY FOR IT. This is like entering a "if you finish this meal within 30 minutes, it's free" restaurant promotion, not finishing the meal, and refusing to pay. Note restaurant promotions of this type are also not "clearly illegal."

The airlines allow you to pay for the flexibility you want. You're just refusing to do so and somehow thinking you're in the right.

Just wait until AirTags have accelerometers in them too (capturing all the abuse to bags)!

Seriously though, I'll be surprised if Apple puts any serious resources into future versions of the AirTag, given the amount of bad PR[0] they've generated for Apple, and how allergic Apple is to bad PR.

From the perspective of Apple, the cost to benefit ratio doesn't seem to be there, especially for a product that is a rounding error on their balance sheet.

[0] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=airtag+track

> Just wait until AirTags have accelerometers in them too (capturing all the abuse to bags)!

You can usually film the baggage handlers abusing the luggage going on or off of your plane. It's not a revelation. If you can get a video to go viral, something extremely superficial might be done by the airline, but it's not going to change anything. This has happened many times in the past.

> given the amount of bad PR[0] they've generated for Apple.

I feel like this is a case of "There is no such thing as bad publicity".

When I read any of that PR, I just see that these are good at what they do at a reasonably low price.

Are you kidding? There’s a massive compounding ecosystem value in AirTags.

Anecdotally, I don’t know anyone — friend or family — that doesn’t make use of them.

As for the bad press? Faith in the press is at an all-time low, activist woke-scolds don’t remotely represent the average consumer, and I don’t think anyone is taking the muckrakers seriously.

>> There’s a massive compounding ecosystem value in AirTags.

I agree with you, but I'd agree with you even more if you swapped out "AirTags" for "Find My Network"[0].

>> Anecdotally, I don’t know anyone — friend or family — that doesn’t make use of them.

It might be a silicon valley bias, bur in Sydney Australia, my only friends or family that have them are those who I've consensually tagged.

Examples:

- expensive equipment - work vehicles - courier deliveries for orders > $xK in value - kids school bags (kids too young for phone, school doesn't allow watches)

[0] https://developer.apple.com/find-my/

This just convinced me to buy some.

I actually think part of the benefit of AirTags for Apple is to help build vendor lock-in. Say you own 5-10 airtags over time. If you switch to a phone like Samsung you essentially are giving all those tags up, or you have to keep that old iPhone accessible for when you lose things if you want to keep using them. Of course, that alone may not be a big deal, but if you also own other Apple products that lock-in effect gets even greater. Almost everyone I knows is aware of Airtags, and most own them. I even know multiple people who have used them successfully to recover/find lost items. This kind of value while it may look small on a budget sheet, is huge in the lock-in and consumer loyalty for Apple.

I bet my coworker who recovered their stolen bike via an Airtag is now much less likely to consider leaving Apple for example.

AirTags. Apple Watch. iMessage. All things you lose if you give up your iPhone.

My bags have air tags in them… just by default when I travel.

My kids are tagged when traveling. Elderly in laws at times.

This rule makes them look like they know they’re terrible/ don’t want to get caught.

Airtags are great for tracking luggage. Last time I travelled I put one in both of my checked bags and was able to track them as they moved around the airport and onto the plane. My phone in the passenger cabin was even able to receive pings from them during the flight when the bags were in the cargo hold. I have had my luggage lost before and Airtags give me great peace of mind that my luggage is headed to the destination and that if my bags do get lost I can hopefully help direct the airline staff to exactly where they are. I’ve never flown Lufthansa but this ban wouldn’t stop me anyway. The benefit is too great.

There are two kinds of bags: carry-on and lost.

I first read the above quote on a site dedicated to techniques on packing only one bag per person on a trip of any length - and it’s been a mantra ever since.

So much easier to skip baggage claim and walk out of the airport.

I still put an AirTag in the carry-on - helps in case it gets stolen at the hotel/etc.

I’d be interested in that guide if you could find it.

https://www.onebag.com/checklist.html

There used to be a horizontally formatted PDF one page printable version of the guide but I can’t find it at the moment.

There's also a how-to-pack portion of the guide as well re: bundle wrapping.

I would say the push for this is motivated by their crappy customer service.

I agree with this. Mostly because I had a poor experience with one of their gate agents recently. They forced me to check my hand luggage because it was 2kg overweight. They don't uniformly enforce the hand luggage weight limit, their employees get to pick and choose passengers at the gate. The gate agent scoffed at me putting an AirTag in the bag that they were making me check.

> They don’t uniformly enforce…

Because it’s a scam. They pick “enforcement” targets by guessing who seems likely to pay.

I’ve never been charged when traveling solo. But with family or co-workers they have a shot at the “oh, just pay it, we have a plane to catch” gambit. I know their tricks and always refuse. Then I lay the bag down and start rifling through it like Yoda in Luke’s lunchbox.

The long line of passengers who think they will miss their flight are staring daggers at me. My travel companions are attempting to activate their invisibility cloaks. I give not one f because it is a scam.

I am helping everyone by showing it is a scam. Half the time the agent backs down. The other times I can usually throw a few heavier things into a spare duffel bag. F that s.

"this bag is too heavy"

OK, I guess I'll...move a few things from there into another bag that is going onto the same flight, possibly the bag of someone I'm traveling with. Now you have reduced the flying weight of the plane by exactly 0 grams and made everyone a few percent more angry / delayed / stressed out.

This is a dumb policy.

It's not just about the weight on the plane. It's about the equipment and people who move the bags around. Clearly, people have some upper limit they need to be expected to lift as baggage handlers.

It was a carry-on bag that was overweight, so nobody other than the passenger would be handling it.

No, it was a checked bag that was barely over the limit. There’s a penalty fee and the bag is tagged “heavy” so the handlers are aware. Some high-mile fliers get an extra weight fee exemption. There’s another limit for max weight.

You can see out the window of the plane the way handlers drag and drop even much lighter bags and crates, even when tagged “fragile”, how much the weight matters and how much they give a s. I have video. The jars survived. Double-boxing ftw.

If we could produce some kind of internal memo or training guide that proved this, would that be enough to result in some consequences in a court of law?

Funny they even sell them in their own shop: https://www.worldshop.eu/de/apple-airtag-ortungsgeraet-1er-p...

Seems like a silly argument. But just for fun, Apple could add a "timer to on" functionality to the AirTag, so you can turn it off temporarily and it'll turn on by itself after X hours. So turned off first, and around when you land, have it automatically turn on.

Call it "Travel Mode" just like what 1Password calls it, as it's a defense against the same entity: adversaries.

Huh. I don't check luggage much and, at least with United, their checked baggage app tracking system seems pretty good. But I've been tossing in an AirTag on the few occasions I've checked luggage in the past year or so and it seems to work pretty well as a backup tracker.

I check luggage pretty often, and these days I always chuck a Tile into every bag. With all the logistical disruptions at airports of late, waiting at baggage claim is a lot less nerve-wracking when I can see that my bags pinged on the tarmac five minutes ago.

It's not perfect information but in a lost/delayed/slow baggage situation, anything is better than nothing.

> Note that the reason for airport mode is a courtesy to cell-phone carriers. It's not any air safety issue.

It was when it was introduced. In today's modern airliner there is not much risk but earlier equipment was not built to withstand this kind of interference. Sometimes you could even hear GSM buzzing through the audio of the pilots speaking, on the airband. It was also a certification issue.

Today it's not a technical issue anymore in the western world, and some airlines even permit the phones to be used while in cruise (they provide their own 3G/4G access point on board with satellite backhaul - at a huge markup of course!). Though WiFi is more popular. Airlines that don't still prohibit it for what I believe are more social reasons (and the issue with them swarming cell towers indeed)

It's a bit similar to the issue happening now with radio altimeters and 5G. Many airliners still have older radio altimeters that aren't built to deal with 5G interference (in this case from the ground though).

The amount of RF energy coming from a BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacon is absolutely minimal though, it's for this reason that they can run for months on a button cell. A cell phone can transmit 1-2 Watts of energy.

An airline that actually cared about customers would figure out a way to temporarily provide all bags with an Airtag (or equivalent) and encourage customers to track their bags.

Or at least, encourage customers to provide their own Airtags.

Contract terms that are unfair under EU law have no legal or binding force on consumers. As long as the unfair term is not an essential element of the contract, the rest of your contract (but not the unfair term) remains valid. This means, for example, that you won't have to give up your gym membership just because one clause in the contract is unfair.

EU countries must make sure that consumers know how to exercise these rights under national law, and must have procedures under which business may be prevented from using unfair terms.

Throughout the EU, national authorities are in responsible for enforcing EU consumer protection rules. If you feel that a particular trader is repeatedly breaching these rules, including at a cross-border level, you should report your case to them.

If you feel that particular contract terms are unfair, you can seek advice from:

- National consumer associations - for advice on problems in the country where you live

- European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net) - for help with cross-border disputes

If transmissions truly are a problem, I would hope they’d protect passengers and vehicles (e.g. faraday cage luggage compartments) rather than hoping customers do not leave dangerous devices such as AirTags in their luggage.

This is exactly why I’m so opposed to government bail outs - even though it was repaid in most countries (famously Austria chose the worst way to save them, give them free money to not repay).

It would have been nice to see this massive company (with monopoly on many routes in Germany) broken up and under new ownership competing for customers, rather than treating them as a massive burden.

I remember sometime back Lufthansa had an Ad for indian audience where an old gentleman is saying to his grandson how Germans are very serious people, and he wants to avoid lufthansa.

Then he tries it anyway and is pleasantly surprised by their hospitality.

> Lufthansa isn’t exactly a customer-friendly airline,

Finally that ad makes sense to me. It was a coverup for their extremely bad customer service.

Most Lufthansa customer service is in India or at least indian origin.

Zero help from customer support so far.

But ad is correct. Avoid lufthansa if possible.

Lol Lufthansa is the absolute worst when it comes to lost luggage... Last time we flew with them they not only lost our luggage, but the luggage of every single person on the same connection (about 50 people). It seems as though they are actually simply incapable of figuring out how to keep track of luggage.

And of course allowing airtags would make that even more obvious.

Why we don't have some international passive RFID luggage tag that all airports could automatically scan is beyond me. I mean the amount of luggage that still gets lost and every few years a screwup creates such a backlog that they give up and dump them figuring compensation is easier than sorting it all out. It's ridiculous.

Why don't they try something new and adopt the same technology. Clip a tag to the bags' handles at check-in and have readers on planes and throughout the airport. Lost luggage should be a thing of the past after that. You don't even need to rely on people physically scanning it with a barcode reader.

Why don't airlines offer a baggage insurance system? Have a separate check in area for the bag, where the value has to be declared with a staffer verifying said things were in the bag, the bag is sufficiently durable, and charge a large amount for the service. Then maybe ID verification on pickup. $300 a bag would keep this an option just for people moving their cameras and stuff.

Or let Fedex open a check in counter at airports with advice on how to receive packages at nearest fedex office?

Because airlines are a race to the bottom and we live in capitalist hell. "Start your own airline if you think you could do it better".

A long time ago in the US, one could purchase additional baggage insurance at the check-in counter. Insuring for $10,000 USD guaranteed face-to-face hand-off-on-signature delivery at every step of the way. There are crappy third-party insurance underwriters for luggage these days, and the airlines stopped offering their own insurance policies because theft is so rampant in their baggage handling processes.

In the US, there is a myth that packing a gun and going through the procedure to declare it would sprinkle magic never lost dust upon the luggage. It was once true a long time ago, but these days it only marginally improves the odds, if at all.

An AirTag, Tile, and an old phone with a basic plan, new battery, and on your find device app, is about as good as it gets nowadays.

The gun is less about anti-disappearance, and more about getting permissions for a proper lock where the key bitting isn't available for ~10 bucks in a ring of ~5 keys.

Good point, thanks for bringing that up.

If I had confidence airport baggage handling procedures could guarantee the handlers couldn’t simply walk off with the luggage, I’d get a rotomolded case and lock it with a couple Assa Abloy shrouded padlocks (they offer key blank management systems for the truly paranoid). But from what I’ve read online, it seems baggage handling theft prevention procedures in many airports are lackadaisical at best. These days, if I absolutely want to arrange high-value goods transfer on an airline instead of a normal freight service, I use the airlines’ air cargo service and insure excess value. You have to sign up in advance and they’ll usually turn you down if they don’t think you’re a commercial customer with a volume worth their trouble.

As freight is usually b2b and their profit margin bread and butter business, it is tracked more carefully. Roughly estimate the insurance at $8 USD per $1000 USD value. Before anyone gets all excited about sending checked luggage this way, the freight rates explain why this is how many airlines can book a profit with air cargo in the revenue mix; roughly estimate it at $4 USD per pound. Most checked luggage maximum weight allowances in the US is 50 pounds, so you can see why practically no one chooses this option.

Good luck enforcing this ban. How would they? Open up suspect bags and tear them apart looking for a device the size of a quarter?

You’d have to admit to breaking this rule in order to point out any baggage misplacement.

I have an AirTag which turns off during flights and powers itself on after 24h. Hah. Compliance!

How do you get the AirTag to do this?

Oh it's very simple. I can show you if you give me my luggage with the AirTag ;)

You just say it does that, so they can’t argue that you violated ruling banning AirTags on board.

These devices beacon every few seconds to announce their location.

AirTags are scannable as an NFC and they identify themselves as AirTag.

NFC range is so low you’d have to scan the exact right spot in the bag. Good luck.

I believe there are nfc scanners with much more capable antennas that for instance can scan a passport from 10 ft away…

I think you’re mixing up RFID and NFC.

Oh yes, I do. Thanks!

Hmmm, so could they require that all handlers turn off the functionality on their phones that enables this concept to work? Thereby reducing the pings or hits all together?

Not that they need any sympathy, but it seems unjust towards apple to be targeting a specific product from a specific company, rather than say a blanket ban (no device that will transmit Bluetooth). I wonder if this will boost the market for airtag competitors.

> I wonder if this will boost the market for airtag competitors.

Probably as much as Samsung’s competitors were boosted after a bunch of airlines made noise about exploding smartphones. That is, not at all.

Then they'd either have to ban Bluetooth headphones too, or admit that they're doing it because the trackers make them look bad and not actually for safety.

For all the people commenting "How would they know?", AirTags are scannable by NFC readers and identify themselves as an AirTag.

You can test this yourself by downloading the NFC Tools app on your iPhone (or one for Android) and doing a read on the AirTag.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nfc-tools/id1252962749

If you stick it in the middle, it’s out of range. Unless you have some super powered scanner perhaps

If it is not connectable you won't locate your luggage either

I did not expect anyone on HN suggesting sticking it deep into the luggage so it's out of range.

And you are confidently wrong since the NFC has very short range.

Out of NFC range. Not out of Bluetooth range.

Ah. I see.

They report in via Bluetooth, not NFC.

My phone won’t scan one from more than a few inches, but I can locate them with Find My iPhone 20+ feet off.

Also what is the point? Bluetooth is easily detectable too

They don't identify as AirTags over BT like they do over NFC.

https://lifehacker.com/try-using-a-bluetooth-scanner-app-to-...

NFC and Bluetooth are different technologies with different capabilities and ranges.

if its out of range, its not much use as an airtag. circular logic

NFC and Bluetooth have different ranges. AirTags use both for different purposes.

It still beacons. And sticking it in the middle will attenuate the beaconing by quite a bit (per my own testing), which defeats the purpose.

NFC has a range of around 5cm and has nothing to do with how AirTags work for tracking purposes. Do you really think AirTags only update their location when someone with an iPhone comes over to intentionally scan it?

Even if you bury the AirTag in the middle of the luggage, it will still be trackable, but NFC will absolutely not come even close to reaching it.

They’re not going to have off the shelf equipment capable of locating an AirTag quickly enough to matter even if they can tell there are AirTags somewhere in the general vicinity of the luggage area. That’s just not how any of this works.

Whether the rule itself is ridiculous or not, as others have pointed out, the main benefit seems to be that they can tell customers to stop bothering them about luggage that they’ve lost.

I put an airtag on the inside pocket of my luggage, and am having no luck scanning it from the outside. It seems unlikely this will work. I can still find it with my iphone though.

Yeah but security scanners don't have NFC readers built into them, and even if they did, the range is too short to be useful the way scanners are built.

> "How would they know?"

They don't have to know.

All they want to do is respond to "You lost my bag" with "But you jeopardized the entire flight with your illegal transmitter".

You don't need to reveal your AirTag to report a lost bag.

And carrying an AirTag, even if it were against their rules, does not somehow absolve them of their duty to return the bag (and/or pay for the lost luggage).

Strange idea, instead of finding a way to ban technology that makes you look bad — maybe instead be customer friendly, offer free tags and add clear real-time map of where the customer’s luggage is currently and is expected to be.

Oh Lufthansa… the reason why I stopped carrying more than 1 backpack when taking the plane.

They permanently lost 1 item, among all the other times the luggage would arrive well after me. They reimbursed me a tiny fraction of the lost value.

The Venn diagram of crappy air carriers and air carriers that ban devices that let travelers find their lost luggage will make its way to a circle.

We just bought our first AirTag specifically for this reason.

No more plausible deniability I guess when really you just don't want to pay someone to sort through the lost and found luggage.

This is the dumbest thing they could have done - Streisand effect is in full swing after this. "What doesn't Lufthansa want us to see? What are they hiding?"

THANK YOU LUFTHANSA for making people actually hold you accountable for the ungodly shitty practices most airlines hold themselves to without recourse. Enjoy the bed you've made for yourself.

Interestingly, they're not an issue in carry on bags. Which sit about 3 feet higher than a checked bag inside of an airplane.

They also sit at a much higher pressure. The concern is that the much lower air pressure can cause stress on lithium batteries in the cargo hold, leading to bulging and possible damage, maybe catastrophic.

Especially for already damaged or poorly made batteries

Isn't the cargo hold pressurized too? Don't pets often fly in there?

Yes: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/8252/are-cargo-...

GP is just making up hypothetical dangers of Li-ion batteries, a popular pastime on the internet.

The hold is pressurised. Unless it is a DC-10 with a cargo door popping open in mid-flight, in which case the pressure differential is enough to collapse the floor of the cabin and throw passengers bodily out of the plane.

The main concern with lithium batteries is fire. A fire in the cabin can be detected and contained much faster than in the cargo hold.

Fire is probably not a realistic concern with an AirTag, Tile, or similar low-powered device using a tiny battery, but the regulations are not nuanced. Devices powered by lithium batteries are supposed to be turned off if they're in the cargo hold.

AirTags use normal button cell batteries, not lithium based

Normal button cells are lithium based. CR2032 in this case.

If you want better baggage treatment on airlines, just stick a gun in checked baggage.

I have found that putting a gun in my checked baggage and declaring it gets my bag VERY special treatment. It gets special tagging and individual handling. Drop off in a special area. It doesn't go on the carousel, I have to go claim it with ID etc. Best part is this costs nothing. I know some photographers that learned this trick and check some camera gear this way, thousands of dollars of camera airlines don't care about (baggage thieves do) BUT you stick one cheap gun in there and declare it suddenly that bag gets VERY special treatment.

This assumes that you are legally allowed to posses the gun at both ends. You must declare the gun at check in and it must be in a approved lock box. Do your research before attempting this.

Try that in Europe. Or almost anywhere not US though, and you'll very likely won't be able to access your luggage due to being detained in some cell.

Don't stereotype. The world is far more nuanced than that.

You're allowed to own and transport firearms, with various levels of restriction, in every European country. Farmers and security personnel are the obvious examples here.

Some European countries are far more permissive than that, of course. The Czech Republic, for instance, recognises a constitutional right to self-defence and defence of others with a firearm, and has a very liberal licensing regime for gun ownership and concealed carry of guns for the purpose of self defence. Some Czech courthouses have safe deposit boxes where you can store your guns upon entering.

Exactly, that's the whole point I'm pushing here. We are just looking for legal loopholes to get this special baggage treatment.

I think legally you would have more success across the world with a long gun (rifle or shotgun). BUT that's a bigger item that's a PITA to pack. So the loophole here is you only need to transport the piece that has the serial number on it because that is legally the "gun" part. So for example the lower receiver of an AR with nothing attached to it is smaller than most pistols but that's the part that is considered a "rifle" to exercise this loophole.

How are they even going to know if there is an airtag in someone's luggage? Are they particularly obvious on an x-ray or is there some kind of specialised detector?

See the comment about non-cynical motives - and then, you can't complain 'well I can see on my tracker app that..' if you're not supposed to have one.

Well, if they are transmitting, at least in theory it would be possible to detect that transmission. Though I would be kind of surprised if they actually put much effort into actually enforcing it.

But then why is inflight wifi a thing?

Under FAA rules (what I’m familiar with, EU/DE/ICAO is probably similar), the air carrier can determine which portable electronic devices to allow.

The law (it’s short): https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.21

An advisory circular relating to it: https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...

This allows an air carrier to approve anything they’re confident won’t cause an issue but not approve AirTags.

If they want to defeat tracking, they can enforce their baggage employees not to bring iPhones to work. Of course eventually on the plane, the luggage will be like ten feet below hundreds of people who might have an iPhone!

It's an interesting question. Maybe it's just scare tactics. The battery that goes in an AirTag is the same as in a lot of wristwatches and I expect it would look like a wristwatch via x-ray. And it is exactly as dangerous as such a thing, which it to say: not.

Does security handle airline specific requirements? I’ve flown a lot and don’t think I’ve ever experienced that, but maybe?

>The battery that goes in an AirTag is the same as in a lot of wristwatches and I expect it would look like a wristwatch via x-ray.

If it's just scare tactics then the similarity to watches is irrelevant. However, if for whatever reason they want to crack down on it, it being similar to wristwatches isn't going to stop them. I suspect most wristwatches are kept with the person rather than in checked luggage, and that if were actually determined they could demand a search of your luggage if they spot anything that remotely looks like an airtag on x-ray.

I left my AirPods case in my seat, realized walking toward baggage area, wouldn’t let me go back to get them.. assured me someone would go get them for me… I filed a claim, they said they couldn’t find them there… now I see my AirPods case in an apartment complex in the Bronx… nothing I can do….

You could show up at the apartment.

You don't wanna show up unannounced at random people's houses in the US, certainly not in the Bronx.

At the very least, you should file a police report and a complaint with DoT.

I’m pretty sure that this ban is impossible to enforce, because it’s not just AirTags that use the Find My Network — AirPod cases and other Apple devices have the same functionality. Someone who knows more about the technicals of the Find My system might disagree, but it seems the airlines would have to literally ban carrying Apple devices in your luggage.

This also seems to indicate that a “workaround” would be to drop a spare Apple accessory with Find My capability in your luggage. Again, I could be wrong, so hopefully someone with more domain expertise can correct me!

I don't want my luggage to be sent to some lost luggage auction. I actually do want to know where it is.

Lessons from recent lost luggage:

1. Fly direct if you can.

2. Insure your luggage.

3. If you must connect flights, stick with one airline, leave a 2-hour gap between flights and fly earlier in the day so you don’t end up in a dodgy hotel.

4. Put important stuff in hand luggage, incl. warm tops and underwear.

5. Use an AirTag.

Recently waited a month for my luggage after a missed Vueling connection due to striking baggage handlers. The airline claimed it was due to a “technical issue.” Wish I had bought an AirTag. You’d be surprised how the cost of small items add up…

I just ordered AirTags for exactly this purpose. Thanks for the hint Lufthansa.

Not sure what would be the motive for the airline to hide that the bag is lost. If it's not waiting for you at the baggage claim, you know it is lost, airtag or no airtag. Also not sure what good it does to the user either, to know in which particular hall of which particular terminal the luggage is right now.

Much more useful outside of airports.

Gives airlines the freedom to not load luggage for operational reasons (plane too heavy, high paying cargo shipment became available very recently, fuel at this airport too expensive) and pretend it was a simple mistake to avoid (rightful) customer outbursts about being singled out. Airline staff can probably see as much on their screens but not allowed to share.

My first reaction in that scenario would have been to blame the baggage handling of the airport.

A forward-thinking airline would not ban airtags and the like — they would REQUIRE them. Then offload some of the tracking to the customers.

This is obviously simply the airline trying to cut down on bad social media posts, as it is a lot less dramatic to post "I flew from Frankfurt to New York, and two days later where is my bag?" instead of "I flew from Frankfurt to New York, and two days later why is my bag in Hong Kong?

And with the ban, what are they going to do, refuse to load any bag that scans as an NFC? Send it but charge extra to collect it? Kick you off the plane? What happens when you have other luggage items that require it?

It also seems like this could be easily defeated with a feature that would put the AirTag to sleep for X hours after put in the luggage (set X to long enough to get to the airport and in the air, but shorter than when you are supposed to arrive).

Do they ban wristwatches with the same battery inside of them‽

The author states:

>"While some airlines provide baggage tracking, it’s awesome to always know exactly where your checked bag is."

Can someone say which airlines provide baggage tracking and it works exactly?

It's amazing that in 2022 baggage tracking is somehow too exotic for carriers as a matter of course.

United does, Emirates does.

They're just exposing internal scans "bag dropped off", "bag in X storage area", "bag loaded on tug train" and an abstracted "bag loaded on plane" which is probably just a single scan of the tug train barcode, much like USPS will scan bundles of mail instead of individual items.

Every airline has this functionality internally. Even the really small ones. They just don't choose to publicize it.

Isn't it a case of false information?

I thought the tags communicated with nearby Bluetooth devices that have gps, which there should be none active nearby lost luggage... so people would scream that their luggage is somewhere around while the location is in fact outdated?

Yes, they communicate with nearby Apple devices which have opted in to being part of the AirTag discovery network.

Chances are, there is someone around. An airline worker with an iPhone in their pocket, etc. I’ve put AirTags in my luggage since they came out and it’s fun to see how often their location gets pinged.

How does this help me when luggage is lost? I imagine standing at the lost luggage counter pointing at my phone screen: „But it’s there! Look!!!“, and the poor soul at the counter can only say „yes, we will get it to you asap“.

I totally get the peace of mind aspect, knowing where it is. But I don’t believe it helps me getting my luggage back if it is „lost“.

Imagine the worst case: the luggage fell down some escalator somewhere during transit. Or somewhere on the runway. And you then see it lying THERE! I SEE IT! How would the lost luggage counter contact a person picking up the luggage from there? I don’t think there are processes in place for this.

Having always had airtags in every checked bag for my wife and I for years now, we'll never go back. Has helped us in numerous situations not to mention peace of mind.

Good luck preventing me from putting one in there. We're not going back.

This feels like one of those policies those idiots at work came up with.

Like: let’s disable Chrome’s password manager because of a Cisco leak.

Ok, back to password + time of the year.

You’re not solving an issue. You’re just making people find workarounds.

Do they realize how many these these days have small batteries in them? Shavers, tooth brush, etc - that almost always are checked. Not to mention the coin cell batteries.

Are they really planning on banning every battery in luggage AND Enforcing it? That seems like a recipe for a bad time.

Don't get me wrong, there is a reason for some of the rules. The galaxy note 7 will be forever known as the fire phone. Cheap shitty hoverboards similarly caught fire with regularity.

But is there a single story about an AirTag catching fire?

This entire thing doesn't make sense.

You can have batteries in your luggage, in a device for which they are intended, provided it is turned off. AirTags being a device which transmit and and contain lithium, and wouldn’t normally be be turned off might be forbidden under a strict interpretation of the rules.

The statement from Lufthansa is clearly an interpretation of existing rules and not a specific ban on AirTags.

> it just can’t transmit, which of course renders it useless

Because, what, it's impossible to program things like this to start transmitting after an N-hour radio silence?

That’s the fix from Apple’s side — setting a flight mode that only activates after a set time period, altitude changes indicating landing, or some other beacon saying you’ve landed. So long as the Bluetooth radio doesn’t transmit, it should be fine from an FAA/EU equivalent point of view.

Operationally, I can see one reason why airlines would want to ban AirTags in luggage. AirTags default to beeping when they're away from the owner's iPhone. Found this out the hard way when leaving car keys with a valet parking once; came back to the keys in a drawer and beeping loudly; valet reported they had been like that all day. Presumably it's also a pain for baggage handlers and security folks who handle the bags.

On the plus side it's probably a lot less likely that they'll forget about your bag if it's incessantly beeping at them

The beeping isn't for distance from you, it's for proximity to someone else. It's there so that you can't slip this into someone's bag and then find them later.

"However, practically speaking, I can’t imagine it poses much of a risk of fire, or anything else."

Writer seems to not understand turning off transmitters is not about fire risk but electromagnetic compatibility with flight instruments. Hundreds of RF sources of different quality each with their own spurious emissions add up, but whether they seriously affect those instruments is still debated.

Our last trip we put airtags in all of our checked luggage. When we arrived at our destination before collecting our bags, 1 of the airtags showed it was still at the departing airport! Lucky for us it was not correct, and for some reason the airtag didnt update. So in this instance they caused more harm than good, but if your bag is missing it seems very helpful to have it tagged.

> If you must pack your tablet, mobile or laptop in your checked luggage, be sure they are completely turned off (not in "hibernate" or "sleep" modes).

Mentioning hibernation is inaccurate. The whole point on hibernation is to save the OS RAM to disk/SSD so that the machine can be completely powered off and unplugged without losing work.

In One Mile At A Time (OMAAT) has a fairly battered reputation in the wider frequent traveller community - see [0]

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[0] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/34608772-post4698.html

There could be non-cynical motives for airlines not to want customers to be able to track their baggage. Getting weird enquiries about whether bags have been stolen because they are in some unexpected non-airport location, when it's just a place the airline uses to handle delayed baggage, is probably troublesome for them.

It doesn't seem as if "We've rerouted your luggage to a different airport and you'll get it at some point" should be a particular secret of the airline.

Yeah, but the solution to this is to proactively communicate the status of bags to customers. If you're getting weird inquiries because you're being opaque about something important to a customer, who is confused, it's your own fault if that's troublesome.

Delta has been providing live updates of luggage locations for years without an issue.

They're claiming it's due to radio transmission anyways.

This. I get a notification when it gets loaded and unloaded from a plane, and I can view the exact times it was accepted, got on a plane, got off the plane, and if it's in the right airport or not.

They're scanned every step of the way anyway. It's absolutely ridiculous for a carrier to come back with "we don't know where your bag is". Especially in 2022.

Is it just me or is that even more cynical?

Moving my belongings to an off-site location is _precisely_ the sort of thing I'd want to be notified of, and if the airline doesn't feel that I deserve to know that, ahh, well. That would be problematic.

I appreciate that you're trying to find alternate explanations, and it's my first impulse to do the same, but I've been racking my brain and I just can't come up with any. This one isn't better, it's worse.

Is it really a “weird inquiry” for someone to wonder why their bags aren’t being delivered?

If the bags aren’t being delivered, that’s troublesome for the owner of the bags. And a version of “troublesome” I find more sympathy for compared to the burden on poor ol’ massive airline companies having to listen to their customers when they lose their property.

> This is specifically because of the transmission function. Lufthansa claims that the transmission function needs to be turned off during flight when in checked luggage, just as is required for cell phones, laptops, etc.

Can anyone confirm/deny whether Airtags can interfere with aircraft navigation and communication systems?

Given the frequencies used and the transmission power, I’d be absolutely blown away if it were able to cause any issues.

Aircraft rely on VHF and HF for comms and VHF and GPS for navigation. Additionally INS is used for navigation. International operations will also use SATCOM for communications.

If airlines adopt this more generally maybe Apple will create a feature to turn off air tags for a length of time. Ie: don't transmit for the next 6 hours but then start again. That would make this ban look quite ridiculous.

My airtag in my luggage saved my ass last week. Was able to efficiently explain the issue to Delta & got my bag within 4 hours delivered straight to my hotel. I will not be travelling without one

Need the ability to program them to not transmit for X hours. Problem solved.

Well, also a GPS receiver to detect flights to or from Germany.

I'm pretty sure AirTags emit less RF than a pair of Bluetooth headphones, and you can of course use them throughout the flight.

How will this apply when a 3rd party slips an airtag in to track the traveler (ex. SO, PI, stalker)? This seems like a great way to potentially mess with someone they don't want flying around.

They simply do not want people to know where their bags really are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGrQZ2QVxoE

Flew to Bulgaria late spring these jokers managed to lose my bags both ways... I could see why they wouldn't want this. Learned to pack some clothes in my backpack just in case now

My thoughts: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/tQIdxbWhHSM

s/NVIDIA/Lufthansa/g

Wow… AirTags on your luggage? What an incredible idea, lol.

Really though… can someone who knows what they’re talking about (or a pilot?) tell us if the transmitting excuse is a cover or BS?

This decade is really the year of shitty customer service isn’t it. They’ve just given up. Airports and planes are going to be miserable places for the foreseeable

Makes me wonder what system US security agency has for these. Can they ask Apple to disable them for certain areas or by device if you happen to be a target of interest?

This is a credit card affiliate marketing blog. Really not a good source for any actual news. I do like their reviews of airline products though.

How are they going to enforce that? Being an airline I would have expected them to just tack on yet another fee.. ‘AirTag fee’.

That was already brought up in August. Original source is an article in Wirtschaftswoche. As it's paywalled you might also get to the article at ifun: https://www.ifun.de/lufthansa-apple-airtag-an-fluggepaeck-ni...

More or less what they are saying is that Airtags are not allowed, but they don't enfoce a ban. You won't get anything more official. And that's not german at all - try arguing with TSA agents about rules.

On a related note. Has anyone figured out a way to prevent my damn AirTags from randomly chiming? It's driving me insane.

Headline is misleading. The policy says nothing about AirTags. It’s just that their new policy would cover them, technically.

Putting an AirTag in my passport wallet, has saved me a ton of unnecessary stress, both before, after (and during travel).

Are they going to scan bags for AirTags now?

Because they didn’t want the public to know how shitty a record they have with losing luggage?

I wonder if everyone will get "unknown accessory detected" warnings about a device following them?

Some airline should advertise that you can put them in and make fun of Luftwaffle losing all your lugs.

Next AirTag software update: when any nearby phones indicate they are in Airplane mode via Bluetooth (which they can do because bluetooth isn't blocked in airplane mode), put all nearby airtags on standby for an hour). Apple can figure out all the nuances. Or they'll add cheap pressure monitors and determine tag is on an airplane. Repeat. Your move, Lufthansa.

"You can't look for your Airpods because someone around you put their phone into airplane mode" seems like a pretty bizarre limitation.

Can we put a cell tower on the plane?

A lot of flights now don't have screens because they expect that everyone will just use their phone to connect to the in-flight wifi to watch movies and buy things (or get super slow internet access that a few people will use to watch streaming video for the low low price of like $50).

To be most aesthetic, please disguise it as a palm tree... or maybe an additional tail fin?

Ugh, that's really annoying. But can they realistically detect an AirTag in checked luggage?

"AirTags leak your private data, thus they must be disabled to preserve your privacy."

I have every incentive to stick a tag in my bag and no incentive to take it out.

Bullshit. They just want to keep you in the dark when they lose your luggage.

Next headline: Lufthansasa installs faraday cages in all their cargo holds

TBH, that seems the more reasonable way of dealing with it. If they are truly worried about transmissions while in flight, then yeah do that. Once the luggage is on the ground and unloaded the AirTags will still work. Seems like a win win for everyone — if what they say about in flight transmissions is the real reason.

They are just tired of people with lost luggage making their staff go find it… there is absolutely zero risk, the amount of energy involved is minuscule.

I eagerly await US carriers adding this as yet another contrived upsell.

You'd expect Spirit Airlines to do this, but do they let you check a bag for less than a hundred bucks?

Airlines don’t lose luggage, airports do. Airlines just carry luggage.

Airlines have some liberty to say "We can't load this luggage" or "We can't load X lbs/% of luggage" for operational reasons

Airlines employ baggage handlers. Your contract to deliver yourself and your luggage is with the airline though.

Apple must fight this and get the regulation clarified. Ridiculous.

Indeed and I expect there's no end of high-level Apple employees flying SFO -> FRA

This can be quickly resolved by moving all those employees to Air France

Yeah - whatever Germany - still going to do it

Any idea how this would be enforced?

Initiate Streisand effect!

[Banned]

[After shocked expression]

"I had no idea"

TL;DR: Lufthansa argues that baggage trackers fall in the category of portable electronic devices, and are therefore subject to dangerous goods regulations issued by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)

And how do they intend to enforce this?

At the least this gives them some poor counterargument if someone says they were able to track their lost bag with an Airtag.

"What do you mean, you have an Airtag in your bag? We don't have any guarantees for baggage containing banned materials."

While this is negligible and I can see a lot of people saying "Well who cares it's just one" if you imagine a lot of interference from a lot of baggage with them on a flight.. I haven't tested, but personally I would prefer to be safer rather than sorry.

It's also worth noting this is a de-facto rule for US domestic flights too. All carriers, switching to airplane mode is a federal requirement on U.S. domestic flights.

Edit : I found an article saying they were compliant with US but no sources.. https://thepointsguy.com/news/bag-tracking-apple-airtag/

I wonder if cargo bays could have a mesh or paint that would act as a faraday cage. I will admit that I suspected at first glance that this was to avoid accountability for luggage that is lost.

Well the fuselage does already, but the cargo bays are a faraday in a faraday ?

That's what I'd assumed, but I'm trying to use the most charitable interpretation of what their concern might be. I don't think it's an EM issue -at all-. I think it may be an accountability issue and the inconvenience of having to fly back individual parcels for no added profit in the face of proof.

Processing it a bit more, particularly on the blutooth only 'mode' I think they are just creating a backup defense for luggage logistic nightmares.

It’s not reasonable to implement something like that. Any gap would need to be <0.5cm in size in order for it to work on a 2.4GHz Bluetooth signal.

Considering that half of the passengers are likely forgetting to put their device in airplane mode - and they’re all using Bluetooth headphones, there is effectively zero risk to the airplane.

>All carriers, switching to airplane mode is a federal requirement on U.S. domestic flights.

How many people do you think actually do this. (I mostly do, when I remember.)

If it's actually a problem, the FAA would be dealing with it other than hoping passengers individually pressed all the right buttons.

> How many people do you think actually do this. (I mostly do, when I remember.) I'm EU based and not flying every day but any flight at all it's always in airplane mode. It's like a seatbelt on a car for me, it's just done.

I'm biased but I would like to believe most people remember,

That is almost certainly optimistic but given that planes are not falling out of the air or reporting a lot of electronic interference issues it's probably OK as things stand.

I'd be a little surprised if 50% of cell phone owners even know how to turn on Airplane Mode.

Yes, I know it's usually right there on a screen you'd think they'd look at pretty often.

I stand by that.

Beyond that, several on every flight who might do it, will forget to, and several more just don't give a fuck. Despite this I've never once seen anyone get hassled over it.

How would attendants even know to hassle someone. Yes, there are some people who pay attention to the announcement and some others who want to preserve their battery. But, yeah, I'm guessing well south of 50% turn on airline mode at least in the US--and I'd probably be a bit surprised if Europe were that different. Certainly no one makes a show of caring all that much these days as they did when turning off cellphones was such a big deal at takeoff.

AFAIK you are still allowed to use Bluetooth and wifi in all phases of flight which is what the AirTag uses (ble).

If you aren’t then someone should tell United because I stayed connected to their network watching a movie all the way from cruise altitude to the gate.

That's fair enough I guess. In the case of bluetooth I don't see an issue.

These things are bluetooth at only 2.8 mw UWB in the GHz range[1]. Anything with that power at that band in an aluminum walled cargo hold is probably nil: kitchen foil attenuates 80 dB over 100 Mhz [2] and bulkheads are much thicker.

So yeah it's not for technical reasons.

1. https://fccid.io/BCGA2187

2. http://www.aluminium-foil.org/aluminum-foil-for-electromagne...

I don't put my stuff in airplane mode, and I travel with a cell phone, an iPad w/ cellular, and my laptop. And my friends do the same. Sometimes we'll fly together.

So I know that doesn't do anything. I bet if I put one of these in airplane mode, I've won enough RF budget for everyone to have Airtags on

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