Lufthansa Changes Mind, Now Says Apple AirTags Are Allowed on Luggage (arstechnica.com) 19
Apple AirTags "are allowed on Lufthansa flights," Lufthansa announced this week — the opposite of their position last Sunday, remembers SFGate:
The airline insisted the tech was "dangerous" and referred to International Civil Aviation Organization guidelines (set by the United Nations's specialized agency that recommends air transport policy) stipulating that baggage trackers are subject to the dangerous goods regulations. ["Furthermore, due to their transmission function, the trackers must be deactivated during the flight if they are in checked baggage," Lufthansa added on Twitter, "and cannot be used as a result"]
Ars Technica reports on the public relations debacle that then ensued: Outcry, close reading of the relevant sections (part 2, section C) of ICAO guidelines, and accusations of ulterior motives immediately followed. AppleInsider noted that the regulations are meant for lithium-ion batteries that could be accidentally activated; AirTag batteries are not lithium-ion, are encased, and are commonly used in watches, which have not been banned by any airline. The site also spoke with "multiple international aviation experts" who saw no such ban in ICAO regulations. One expert told the site the ban was "a way to stop Lufthansa from being embarrassed by lost luggage...."
Numerous people pointed out that Lufthansa, in its online World Shop, sells Apple AirTags. One Ars staffer noted that Lufthansa had previously dabbled in selling a smart luggage tag, one that specifically used RFID and BLE to program an e-ink display with flight information. On Tuesday, Apple told numerous publications that it, too, disagreed with Lufthansa's interpretation. It went unsaid but was strongly implied that a company that is often the world's largest by revenue would take something like air travel regulations into consideration when designing portable find-your-object devices....
Representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration said early this week that Bluetooth-based trackers were allowed in checked luggage. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency said its regulations could "not in itself ban or allow" trackers, but airlines could determine their own guidelines.
On Wednesday, Lufthansa walked back the policy under the cover of "The German Aviation Authorities (Luftfahrtbundesamt)," which the airline said in a tweet "shared our risk assessment, that tracking devices with very low battery and transmission power in checked luggage do not pose a safety risk." This would seem to imply either that Lufthansa was acting on that authority's ruling without having previously mentioned it, or that Lufthansa had acted on its own and has now found an outside actor to approve their undoing.
Ars Technica reports on the public relations debacle that then ensued: Outcry, close reading of the relevant sections (part 2, section C) of ICAO guidelines, and accusations of ulterior motives immediately followed. AppleInsider noted that the regulations are meant for lithium-ion batteries that could be accidentally activated; AirTag batteries are not lithium-ion, are encased, and are commonly used in watches, which have not been banned by any airline. The site also spoke with "multiple international aviation experts" who saw no such ban in ICAO regulations. One expert told the site the ban was "a way to stop Lufthansa from being embarrassed by lost luggage...."
Numerous people pointed out that Lufthansa, in its online World Shop, sells Apple AirTags. One Ars staffer noted that Lufthansa had previously dabbled in selling a smart luggage tag, one that specifically used RFID and BLE to program an e-ink display with flight information. On Tuesday, Apple told numerous publications that it, too, disagreed with Lufthansa's interpretation. It went unsaid but was strongly implied that a company that is often the world's largest by revenue would take something like air travel regulations into consideration when designing portable find-your-object devices....
Representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration said early this week that Bluetooth-based trackers were allowed in checked luggage. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency said its regulations could "not in itself ban or allow" trackers, but airlines could determine their own guidelines.
On Wednesday, Lufthansa walked back the policy under the cover of "The German Aviation Authorities (Luftfahrtbundesamt)," which the airline said in a tweet "shared our risk assessment, that tracking devices with very low battery and transmission power in checked luggage do not pose a safety risk." This would seem to imply either that Lufthansa was acting on that authority's ruling without having previously mentioned it, or that Lufthansa had acted on its own and has now found an outside actor to approve their undoing.
Re:It's all just "what can we get away with?" (Score:5, Interesting)
Lufthansa is run by scumbags. They made me miss an appointment and cost me a lot of money when they denied me boarding to a flight early this year. The gate attendant was an angry, petty man who was mad about me asking them about which masks I brought were compliant with their masking policy, refused to believe me that one of my masks was unvalved even though I brought documentation and demonstrated it, and then when I showed to board - not in the mask he didn't like but rather wearing the same type of mask as all the other passengers - denied me entry. Apparently because of me asking about masks earlier. Another passenger (who I had never met before in my life) who saw how I was treated got mad and complained, and he threatened to deny her boarding too.
I filed a complaint with our local transport authority and Lufthansa responded with gaslighting, literally making up an alternative reality where I was insisting on going unmasked (literally the opposite), showed up at the gate unmasked (false), they offered me a mask (false), I refused to put it on (false), and then they denied me boarding. They lost their case and were ordered to pay me compensation. They instead did nothing and sat on the case until right at the end of the 3 month appeal period, wherein they finally said they were going to pay me and asked for bank info. Except they never transferred the money. So now I have to seek enforcement action...
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No. Lufthansa is an airline. There's one certainty in the world: Every airline you look at you can identify a cunt of an employee who doesn't understand their own rules, and if pressed for compensation they will do everything in their power to prevent it. Gaslighting is the norm when you complain to regulators. That's not a Lufthansa issue, that's a general aviation issue.
I personally have had a bad experience with Lufthansa as well (insisting that Qantas isn't a Virus Travel Lane approved airline and thus
Well it is not so much needed on Lufthansa flights (Score:4, Funny)
But definitely on Air France..
Of my 12 flights with luggage changing flights in Paris on 8 the luggage did not arrive with me to the destination..
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And still you keep on trying?
I always have an AirTag in my luggage and I am reassured when I enter boarding to see that it is close. Screw Lufthansa, even though I live in Germany. No AirTags = No Lufthansa. End of. I don't trust airlines that much with my stuff.
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Flying to certain former French colonies in Africa from Europe kind of only works well with Air France.
Hand luggage and the "emergency allowance" from my insurance works well enough for things that I need there mostly to start with.. as most of the times the luggage arrives couple of days later.
more likely reason (Score:2)
the bad buzz that stupid ban caused was it's undoing...
The stupid has always been here... (Score:4, Interesting)
We've had the same mess with airplanes, mostly recently illustrated by the 5G interference with horribly and incompetently designed radio altimeters. If a pieced of infrastructure is so badly designed that it doesn't hold up to an Apple Watch that isn't in "airplane mode," we're all screwed. But then I haven't heard of any planes going down because someone left their phone out of "airplane mode" either. Did Joe Diabetic somehow turn his insulin pump and blood glucose meter that connects via cellular to his doctor off of "airplane mode" below 10,000 feet? I suggest we just ban Joe Diabetic and all his ilk now because obviously they need to be on terrorist watch lists.
What this airline did was asinine and they thought they would get away with it. Even the simplest amount of thought would tell you that if their planes were so fragile that an bluetooth or cellular item tracker could bring them down if activated, there would be death abounding all over the globe for the last 30 years, and whomever was responsible for designing such shit equipment (in this case the planes or medical equipment) should be rotting in a Siberian gulag.
It's the same level of bullcrap as when someone calls a bomb threat into some institution and the authorities put it into "lock down" they always demand that everyone turn off their cell phones for "safety." Having been in the middle of one of these (real life) threats (though it was ultimately a bomb hoax) I got to watch the police teams run around with wireless scanners frantically trying to figure out where someone's cell phone had been left on the network. Sure, it might make sense, but be honest with people. You want to reduce the number of active beacons so you can track the cell phone that may be attached as a triggering device to the bomb, and you don't want people calling out, not because you for one second think that my getting an email update over 802.11ac is somehow going to cause Armageddon. (In the instance I was peripherally involved in, they banned everyone's cell phones in the hospital. Then their "emergency communication" plan that they implemented was to bring out their own T-Mobile cellular phones out and issue them to key staff.)
*facepalm*
Re:The stupid has always been here... (Score:4, Interesting)
The "interference" was never the real problem.
The main issue is that Luftansa doesn't want customers to know more than them about where their luggage is.
Customers can be annoying, but informed customers are the worst.
Re: (Score:3)
There might be issues with AirTags going off at the airport or on the aircraft too.
Anyone can make an AirTag produce a sound with a command sent over Bluetooth. Most apps prevent the user from doing it until the AirTag has been near them for at least 10 minutes, if it doesn't belong to them. But 10 minutes isn't long, and randomly beeping suitcases might upset some of the security staff, or get really annoying in an aircraft cabin.
Re: (Score:3)
The "interference" was never the real problem.
The main issue is that Luftansa doesn't want customers to know more than them about where their luggage is.
Customers can be annoying, but informed customers are the worst.
If that were really the case, they'd just ban all Apple devices held by staff airside.
Much simpler to enforce and police.
The reality was that 1. Lufthansa are German and what was written was in German, so completely misunderstood (read: deliberately mistranslated) by American papers, 2. They really only issued a strong recommendation so this is jut PR fluff. 3. They've just declared they're legally not liable for anything that happens via or because of your "air tags".
As far as airlines go, LH is p
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And also being German they're consumer-unfriendly. Lost luggage is a reality, and the most frustrating part about it is the lack of transparency. Anyone who los
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The main issue is that Luftansa doesn't want customers to know more than them about where their luggage is.
Lame conspiracy theory. You bought that hook line and sinker. But the reality is, they don't give a shit if you know where the luggage is. TFS itself mentioned they even sell you the damn tags, and tried producing their own.
A great conspiracy theory must have something in it for the conspirators. What benefit to Lufthansa have with you not knowing the location of the luggage? Are you going to be less pissed off? No. Are you going to write "Lost my luggage, but I don't know where it is either, 4 out of 5 sta
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The issue is certification.
There are standards for immunity to RF and other kinds of "noise", basically anything that is an unwanted transmission or deviation from the expected signal like the 50/60Hz mains sine wave.
Those standards did not cover interference from devices operating in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz open bands. Equipment that was certified decades ago and still in use was not tested against those kinds of emissions.
While that equipment is highly unlikely to have an issue, until that has been proven wit
Re: (Score:2)
We've had the same mess with airplanes, mostly recently illustrated by the 5G interference with horribly and incompetently designed radio altimeters.
There's a lot wrong with your post, but I'd like to focus on this.
There was nothing wrong with Boeing's radio altimeters. They've been working fine for decades. The problem was the US's FTC licensed out a part of the spectrum that interfered with the part that was already in use by Boeing, having licensed it for decades before.
That's why this problem was exclusive to the US. Every other regulatory organisation looked at the spectrum that was already licensed and said "welp, best not license out that b
Re: (Score:2)
The problem was the US's FTC licensed out a part of the spectrum that interfered with the part that was already in use by Boeing, having licensed it for decades before.
That part is wrong. No Boeing didn't license that spectrum, not for RALs anyway. That spectrum is used for satellite to ground communication, low power and in a way that doesn't affect RALs. The issue is also not exclusive to the USA, and not exclusive to Boeing aircraft. There's an ITU regulation which governed altimeter performance, and most countries are in some way in breach of it with their 5G rollout.
The issue in the USA is that the guard band between 5G and the RAL was smaller than some other countri
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Seriously, after all the years of squabbling over "wireless interference" has nobody thought of this logically?
Literally none of this has anything to do with wireless. Lufthansa tell you when you fly to enable flight mode and if you want feel free to turn bluetooth back on. On some routes they remind you to disable flight mode in order to access in flight wifi.
Airline discovers new danger from electronics (Score:2)
Lufthansa has evidently fallen victim to one of the most dangerous effects of the Age of Electronic Communications.
It's called "the Streisand Effect".
Unacceptable! (Score:2)
There is a battery inside, probably a Lithium 3v coin cell. Those must be taken out of motherboard and such if you air ship them.