[zahllos]

I suspect the difference is more about the spectrum in use. Airtags can be found and interact via Ultra-Wideband (UWB), which essentially means low power broadcast across 3.1GHz up to 10GHz approx. This includes some spectrum used for GNSS.

One is probably fine but a hold full of them and people's iPhones emitting on UWB also?

By contrast Bluetooth, WiFi etc use the ISM radio bands, which can simply be avoided by any transmission the plane itself needs to do.

[Sporktacular]

UWB, which is pretty new, would be a really good explaination of why they single out these trackers specifically. Without some solid test results to clear them, it's understandable why airlines might be nervous.

Would just add that it's more what the aircraft needs to reliably receive (not transmit) that is susceptible to local sources of spurious RF.

[zahllos]

Yeah agree, receive is probably what I should have said :) I did try to see if there were any discussions of UWB before posting, but only found some PDFs from the FAA from 2015 or so in my casual search. I guess industry insiders might know more. It could well be that the low power was deemed not risky enough (you would have thought all airlines would have banned them if risky) and other posts suggest that in fact Lufthansa have not banned airtags at all... so who knows.