After waiting in vain for over 40 minutes for one of my checked-in bags from a vacation skiing trip to be unbuckled from the belt and onto the baggage carousel at George Bush Intercontinental Airport ( IAH) of Houston this week, things start to look bleak.
The bags had stopped falling, partly because the conveyor belt was so full that it kept backing up.
The passengers worked together, unloading bags on the floor and playing a real-life game of Tetris with the ones still on the carousel to try to keep things moving.
Finally, after an uncomfortably long pause in any baggage process, an announcement comes through the loudspeaker stating that if your baggage is not on the designated carousel for your flight, check it out. other conveyor belts.
What was not explicitly stated through the intercom but felt implied from the surrounding scene was that they could be anywhere. Or nowhere.
My bag is certainly not alone in its zigzag journey home.
Related: TPG’s favorite hand luggage
AirTags are the heroes of the holiday travel season
Quantity Flights delayed and canceled during holiday travel has made the headlines, but where there are stranded passengers, there is also the possibility of piles of luggage stuck in limbo.
And indeed, over the past few weeks, there’s been no shortage of stories of bags being deposited anywhere but where they’re supposed to be.
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This has certainly happened before with other airport and airline crises. Only this time, many travelers (myself included) are ready and have a not-so-secret weapon to find the bags themselves: AirTags.
Apple AirTagsretails for $29 each or $99 for one pack of four, can track the location of everything from keys to checked bags to even your cat.
They were first released in 2021 but have become a regular passenger must-have by 2022, largely thanks to stories and photos of unclaimed luggage at some airports.
And while many airlines have rather sophisticated ways to track baggage in their systems and share that information with travelers, sometimes AirTag knows best, as was the case with recent travelers. Valerie Szybala.
Szybala amassed more than 22 million views on Twitter with her tweets about her lost checked bag signaling at a seemingly random apartment complex instead of where the airline informed her. notify her.
According to AirTag and her tweets, Szybala’s bag spent the night at that apartment complex and even went out to eat at several restaurants.
Having finally caught the attention of the airline and the news team, the bag and its owner were finally reunited. Szybala believes that AirTag (and the resulting virality) is the only reason the story has a happy ending.
As for my own check-in bag filled with clothes and ski gear, an AirTag that I had placed inside before the flight also played a big part in our reunion. Thanks to AirTag, I knew the bag made it onto our flight and landed in Houston.
Even after a frustrating hour in baggage claim, I knew it couldn’t be that far. Unfortunately, while AirTag didn’t update its exact location in real-time enough to help me ping it between piles of luggage, knowing it was at the right airport made it impossible for me to ignore.
In the end, I found my bag on the floor among dozens of others like it next to a baggage carousel that had nothing to do with my original flight.
I have no way of knowing if it’s been sitting there for five minutes or the whole time I’ve been waiting. However, knowing I was about to find it thanks to the AirTag, I kept searching until that bag and I finally got home together.
Related: How to track your checked baggage with Apple AirTags
Best $29 travel investment you can make
Sometimes you can’t carry all the luggage, as was the case with our ski trip. The best thing to do to increase the likelihood that you and your belongings will meet again is to throw an AirTag in your pocket before you hand it over to the airline.
Of course, most bags go where they’re supposed to be, but some definitely don’t.
This is especially true when an airline is experiencing an operational crisis affecting thousands of flights and loads of baggage, which also has a knock-on effect even across flights and airlines. has a fairly normal operation.
While airlines and even some Popular credit cards that offer refunds In case of lost and delayed luggage, I personally want to go home with the things that I left behind.
At just $29 and roughly a quarter the size, the AirTag is a perfect tool to help with that, and a small price to pay for some sizable peace of mind.
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