United Airlines and Air Canada first to offer official support for AirTag link sharing

Those traveling for the holidays via United Airlines and Air Canada can now generate a shareable AirTag tracking link with airlines.

There's little else more frustrating than waiting at a luggage carousel only to find out that your bag is conspicuously absent. While most estimates place lost and delayed luggage at less than 1%, that fact is cold comfort to anyone who has to deal with the crisis of tracking down any missing items.

Besides, even if it's only 1%, that's still a substantial amount of people. The United States alone sees 2.6 million flyers daily, meaning roughly 26,000 people lose their bags every day.

And it's not as though airlines enjoy losing your luggage either, as it often results in a bit of a PR crisis.

Fortunately, a new feature now available on iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS 15.2 on Mac, lets customers generate a Share Item Location link from within the Find My app. Then, the customer can share that link with customer service, who in turn can help use that information to track down the lost item.

For security, only a few people at an airline will be able to view the link, with recipients required to authenticate before viewing the location.

The sharing of the tag isn't permanent, as it will be disabled as soon as it is reunited with its owner. Sharing can also be stopped at any time by the user and will automatically expire after seven days.

Currently, United Airlines and Air Canada are the only airlines to support the feature, but as TechCrunch points out, there are nearly 20 airlines that are prepared to support the feature at some point in the future, including:

• Aer Lingus
• Air New Zealand
• Austrian Airlines
• British Airways
• Brussels Airlines
• Delta Air Lines
• Eurowings
• Iberia
• KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
• Lufthansa
• Qantas
• Singapore Airlines
• Swiss International Air Lines
• Turkish Airlines
• Virgin Atlantic
• Vueling

Roll-out dates for the feature on the above-listed airlines isn't clear.