Live data from Hacker News

Lufthansa has not banned AirTags

liveandletsfly.com

11–20 of 262 posts

Re: Lufthansa has not banned AirTags

#12

As an aside, are there ANY decent airlines left in EU? Just having booked tickets thought 3 separate airlines, I had to go throught multiple circles of hell: captcha (LOT), purposefully confusing flow, no luggage by default and next tier being x3-x5 the price (WizzAir, but others are similarly bad), hidden fees appearing during final steps (Norwegian), and everything RyanAir. I'm not even flying with checked luggage…

Air Europa out of Spain isn't that bad and fairly inexpensive. I flew on it 4 times this past year and the booking process works OK.

Re: Lufthansa has not banned AirTags

#13
No change in policy is what they say.

But when interpreting existing rules very strictly they have always been forbidden (electronic device not powered off). In practice nobody has enforced it and obviously they don't plan to enforce it.

Re: Lufthansa has not banned AirTags

#14
post #7

Except they have. A Lufthansa spokesperson has clarified the new rules for the German news site watson: https://www.watson.de/leben/urlaub%20&%20freizeit/879935671-... It rougly translate to: The device itself is not banned, but has to be shut off during flight. In practice this would mean that you would have to remove the battery from the airtag, since there is no powerswitch. But I will admit that this seems odd an…

And this is why Airtags shouldn't have speakers.

Re: Lufthansa has not banned AirTags

#15
post #3

Why would an AirTag, or any personal baggage tracker, pose a threat to an airline and make them want to ban it? The benefits to consumers of using these devices are obvious. But it also seems that enabling customers to know where their lost luggage is would benefit the airlines as well. Can anyone thing of a reason (legitimate or not) that airlines would be motivated to prevent this?

Various airline regulatory bodies have rules that prohibit both devices that transmit wireless signals being carried in the cargo hold, as well as devices that have batteries being carried in the cargo hold. AirTags, while probably not the intended targets of such rules, technically fit both of these categories.

The airline is effectively just saying "we follow the rules we are supposed to follow". In practice, I doubt they care at all, and you're not going to see anyone trying to sniff out AirTags to prevent them from being in luggage... but you're also not going to see the official spokesperson of an airline make an announcement saying "yea go ahead and just ignore the rules, it's fine".

Re: Lufthansa has not banned AirTags

#16
post #7

Except they have. A Lufthansa spokesperson has clarified the new rules for the German news site watson: https://www.watson.de/leben/urlaub%20&%20freizeit/879935671-... It rougly translate to: The device itself is not banned, but has to be shut off during flight. In practice this would mean that you would have to remove the battery from the airtag, since there is no powerswitch. But I will admit that this seems odd an…

As far as I understand there is nothing new. Lithium batteries have always been allowed in checked luggage only if they are inside a completely powered off and reasonably protected device, to avoid the risk of fires. This risk doesn't really apply to such small batteries, but the rules are there regardless of the size of the battery.

Re: Lufthansa has not banned AirTags

#17
post #10

Really simple question is whether car keys are banned under the same rules. They are powered by the same types of batteries.

Of course they are also banned, if they also use lithium batteries, though who flies with car keys? Especially in their checked in luggage?

Re: Lufthansa has not banned AirTags

#18
post #3

Why would an AirTag, or any personal baggage tracker, pose a threat to an airline and make them want to ban it? The benefits to consumers of using these devices are obvious. But it also seems that enabling customers to know where their lost luggage is would benefit the airlines as well. Can anyone thing of a reason (legitimate or not) that airlines would be motivated to prevent this?

Various airline regulatory bodies have rules that prohibit both devices that transmit wireless signals being carried in the cargo hold, as well as devices that have batteries being carried in the cargo hold. AirTags, while probably not the intended targets of such rules, technically fit both of these categories. The airline is effectively just saying "we follow the rules we are supposed to follow". In practice, I dou…

Even worse, the response would have been "we ignore these rules that govern our right to fly our planes all the time, don't worry!".

Re: Lufthansa has not banned AirTags

#19
post #10

Really simple question is whether car keys are banned under the same rules. They are powered by the same types of batteries.

Of course they are also banned, if they also use lithium batteries, though who flies with car keys? Especially in their checked in luggage?

Lots of people travel with car keys if they drive to the airport. But it would be pretty dumb to put them in checked luggage.

Re: Lufthansa has not banned AirTags

#20

As an aside, are there ANY decent airlines left in EU? Just having booked tickets thought 3 separate airlines, I had to go throught multiple circles of hell: captcha (LOT), purposefully confusing flow, no luggage by default and next tier being x3-x5 the price (WizzAir, but others are similarly bad), hidden fees appearing during final steps (Norwegian), and everything RyanAir. I'm not even flying with checked luggage…

No post body was provided.
Post reply on HN