I have a prediction: Airlines won't ackowlege that personal trackers as an effective means to track luggage becuase they're trying to figure out how to force you to buy their own trackers.
Happened on a recent flight with me. Company told us luggage was still on the origin airport, someone had an air tag and vehemently asked them to do a double check, and they miraculously found where it was supposed to be in the first place..
I've heard the fix for lost luggage (in the USA) is unironically to put a flare gun or starter pistol in checked luggage (note, you do have to declare it and ensure it's properly stored). Why? The airlines get their asses reamed by the ATF if they lose it. If I'm not mistaken, the same laws about firearms in checked luggage apply to a flaregun as they do a Browning M2. If they're lax enough about following firearm laws to lose a flaregun then they're lax enough to lose a high-caliber, fully automatic heavy machine gun.
Nice job, you took human flight, something once hailed as breaking the chains imposed on our species by the gods above, and in the name of profit made it the most tedious and insufferable thing imaginable.
my iPhone was telling me that my AirTag was showing [the luggage] live in Toronto," said Sih. "It would update every few minutes when it would ping off someone's phone."
Seems weird to describe this as lying—does the author think that UA is deliberately depriving this person of his luggage? It seems obvious that their system for tracking luggage is flawed and showing incorrect information. I can’t imagine any scenario where this would be intentional.