[KennyBlanken]

So do cargo monitoring (temperature/tilt/vibration/tampering) devices, which are in a lot of commercial cargo - especially vaccine shipments, but any sort of sensitive equipment being air-freighted.

So do wireless earbuds, watches both smart and "dumb", hearing aides, sport sensors including chest heartrate monitors and bike sensors/computers, travel alarms, book lights, e-readers, keychain flashlights, film cameras, and probably a million other things Lufthansa has never cared about for several decades.

The vast majority of electronic devices are "soft" power now, and an e-reader with a 2000mah lithium ion battery is as "powered off" as an Airtag with a sub-3-gram battery. Airpods - no "completely" switched off mode, same for their case.

There's also never been a single case of an Airtag shorting or smoking or failing in any way that would endanger an airplane, and CR2032 batteries can't generate enough current, or contain enough energy, to pose a hazard.

For decades the airline industry had no problem shipping exothermic oxygen generators with little or no regulation (because it suited them well, as they needed to do so for logistics, as the generators are for emergency passenger oxygen) until it caused multiple commercial plane crashes. If you think Lufthansa is suddenly concerned about safety here, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

This is about them not wanting the public to see:

- that their luggage isn't on the plane with them, and generating a fuss at the gate / in the plane

- that their luggage is in a specific place/airport and come calling for it or say "I can see exactly where it is, stop lying to me, it's at airport _____, send it to me"

- their stolen luggage ending up at an employee's home, or the warehouse of a theft ring run by luggage handlers which the company is ignoring

- their "lost" luggage ending up at a warehouse where it is then sold by the pound to companies that sort through your luggage and ebay anything of value

They really hate that customers now have the power to see that they're being lied to and/or stolen from, and be held accountable.

[tsimionescu]

Except that Lufthansa simply replied by citing a ICAO regulation - no more, no less. They have not "banned AirTags", they simply stated an existing regulation that applies to any aircraft.

Whether they actually enforce that regulation in any way remains to be seen, but they couldn't have given any other answer (or else risk being investigated by civil aviation authorities for not properly observing existing flight safety rules).

If you want to convince anyone that they should allow lithium batteries with some particular characteristics to be used in devices that are not turned on, you don't have to convince Lufthansa or any other airline, you have to convince the ICAO and/or national civil aviation bodies, since it's their rule that Lufthansa was citing.

[jsjohnst]

This really should be a top level comment, as it’s spot on imho.

[iudqnolq]

It would be spot on if Lufthansa actually gave a different answer for those.

I bet you if you call Lufthansa and say "I want to put wireless earbuds in my checked baggage" they will also tell you they need to be switched off.

[Sakos]

Dear god, get a grip. Somebody asked Lufthansa specifically about AirTags and this is their response about AirTags based on current regulations. I'm sure if you asked about lithium-based whatever else, you'd get the same answer because the same regulations apply.

[ranger_danger]

Please don't spread FUD.

[Bud]

There's no FUD in this comment. It's right on target.

[cromka]

It's FUD because OP cannot possibly know that "This is about them not wanting the public to see". That's pure speculation, and it fits the FUD definition perfectly.

[ghaff]

And given that United, for one, gives me the exact same information (as far as I can tell) in their app about the location of my checked luggage as their computers have, it seems unlikely that one of their partner airlines would explicitly scheme to prevent people from knowing where their checked luggage is.

As others have said, this seems a case of AirTags possibly don't comply with long-established rules for checked luggage but, like a lot of the rules for electronics on commercial airplanes, the letter of these rules is broken in various ways probably tens of thousands of times every day.