In a significant step toward improving baggage recovery, British carrier Virgin Atlantic has integrated Apple’s Find My Share Item Location technology to help airlines efficiently locate delayed luggage, this innovation, powered by Apple’s Find My network, aims to expedite the recovery process for delayed baggage, ensuring a smoother travel experience.

In a press statement, Virgin Atlantic says that this new functionality allows travellers to privately and securely share the location of their AirTag or Find My network accessory with the airline’s customer teams to assist in locating delayed baggage.

It adds that to use the feature, customers must first generate a share item location link through the Find My app on their iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Once the link is generated, travellers can share it with the airport and baggage tracing teams when reporting a missing bag.

The statement adds that this new feature enables the airline’s team to view the live location of the baggage and reunite it with the customer more efficiently.

It adds that Virgin Atlantic emphasises customer privacy and security by ensuring that the location sharing automatically ends once the customer receives their baggage.

It further adds that the customers also have the option to stop sharing the location at any time, and the link will automatically expire after seven days.

Corneel Koster

Virgin Atlantic says Share Item Location is powered by Apple’s Find My network, a crowdsourced system of over one billion Apple devices using bluetooth to detect and report the location of missing items.

It adds that the process is end-to-end encrypted and anonymous, ensuring that only the customer and airline can access the location data. Neither Apple nor accessory manufacturers can view this information.

“We are always looking for innovative solutions to ensure our customers enjoy the best possible experience with Virgin Atlantic. We know many people already use AirTags or a Find My network accessory to keep updated on the location of their luggage. On the rare occasion, when operational issues or misconnecting flights may require bags to be located, our teams now have this shared source of information, so our customers have peace of mind on our progress. Virgin Atlantic has amongst the best baggage performance in the industry and welcomes this innovation from Apple,” says Corneel Koster, Chief Customer and Operating Officer, Virgin Atlantic.