United Airlines passengers on its flights can now access their Apple AirTag’s Share Item Location feature directly through the airline’s mobile app, allowing them to temporarily share the location of the baggage with United Airlines Customer Service personnel. The share item location feature became available with the release of iOS 18.2, which was released on Wednesday. United says that only 1% of its passengers have issues with lost baggage issues.
David Kinzelman, United’s Chief Customer Officer said in a the UA press release:
Apple’s new Share Item Location feature will help customers travel with even more confidence, knowing they have another way to access to their bag’s precise location with AirTag or their Find My accessory of choice. They can easily and securely share that with us in the United app, and our team can use the location information to find the bag and get it reunited with its owner much more quickly.
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.
Last month, a couple flying United Airlines were told that one of their bags had not arrived at their final destination, even though an AirTag in the bag showed it as being only a few feet away. A United Airline representative then told them that the airline didn’t accept AirTag tracking data for baggage. Hopefully, the new feature puts an end to experiences like that.
