We reported last week that United Airlines is rolling out support for iOS 18.2’s new item location sharing feature to help track lost baggage using an AirTag, and now we learn that Delta and Air Canada are joining the search party.
Apple’s marketing chief Greg Joswiak today posted on X:
Exciting news for all of us travelers! Starting this week, United, Delta, and Air Canada will accept Find My item locations to help track delayed bags, with more airlines coming soon. Such a game-changer! pic.twitter.com/VMcw0D1At0
— Greg Joswiak (@gregjoz) December 16, 2024
The share item location feature became available with the release of iOS 18.2, which was released last Wednesday.
Customers will now be able to privately and securely share the item’s location. Access to each link will be limited to a small number of people, and recipients will be required to authenticate in order to view the link through either their Apple Account or partner email address. The item’s location will stop being shared “as soon as a user is reunited with their item,” or at any time that the item’s owner decides. An item’s shared location will automatically expire after seven days. The whole process is end-to-end encrypted.
The new feature requires an iPhone, iPad, or Mac running iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2, respectively. Users can generate a Share Item Location link in the Find My app on their device and share it with the airline in the UA app. Recipients of the link will be able to view the location of the item on an interactive map. The website automatically updates when an item has moved, along with a timestamp of the most recent update.
Other airlines that will support the feature “in the coming months,” include British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, KLM, Lufthansa, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, Austrian Airlines, Aer Lingus, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Iberia, SWISS, Turkish Airlines, and Vueling. More airlines joining are in the works.
iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS 15.2 were released last week following beta testing.