The additional overhead on personal electronic device battery use from additional signals from AirTags and other such trackers can’t come close to the measure of leaving Bluetooth-enabled/on on the phones even when the PED is far away from other Bluetooth-using devices.
Originally Posted by
gfunkdave
Airplane mode usually leaves Bluetooth on, and AirTags communicate with iDevices via Bluetooth. It's possible a signal could get through all the bags, the aircraft frame, and to your (or another passenger's) phone.
I actually think luggage tracking is one of the less useful applications for AirTags because, in the US at least, all the big airlines' apps seem to have a way to show you your luggage tracking activity including when it was scanned onto the plane.
I have been checking this out with DL, and at some airports I get the AirTags to give me more current updates than DL shows on the apps. And that’s even for when my DL checked bag tags seem to have RFID tags built into them.
The volume of this summer’s RUSH tag bags — generally unaccompanied bags — that I’ve seen at some non-US airports which I frequent too have only upped my user case for AirTags and TilePro since I may get around to the airports to find bags faster than ground services handling irregular baggage handling reports to even deliver them. Add in the drive for clearing the belts, and I’m seeing even non-RUSH-equivalent bags being moved around baggage halls on arrivals before the accompanying passengers can even at times manually locate them.