If you’re planning to fly on Lufthansa anytime soon, leave your AirTag home. Lufthansa becomes the first airline to ban Apple AirTag devices on flights, citing electronic device policies.
According to the German news site Watson, Lufthansa cites a policy pertaining to the prohibited use of electronic devices during flights as a reason for the ban. “Luggage 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 transport in aircraft. Accordingly, due to their transmission function, the trackers must be deactivated during the flight, similar to mobile phones, laptops, tablets, etc. if they are in checked baggage,” said a Lufthansa spokesperson to Watson.
This comes after an incredibly frustrating summer for both the airline and its passengers. Several reports surfaced after Lufthansa continuously lost checked bags, often telling customers their checked bags will arrive on a later flight. Some reports even mentioned the bags never arrived, prompting a wild goose chase between the customer and the airline.
Savvy AirTag users began messaging the airline and tagging them in tweets saying that their updates didn’t match the location data of their AirTag.
It’s unclear what prompted Lufthansa to suddenly ban the use of AirTag devices in checked luggage, but it may be due to customers tracking their luggage in real-time compared to their internal systems which reportedly go down randomly.
It’s unclear whether other airlines will follow, but Lufthansa says that AirTag devices much have the batteries removed before being checked in.

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