AirTag again exposes lies told by airlines about lost luggage

“Lying” suggests the airlines knew where the luggage was and intentionally said it was in a different location. It’s much more likely here that the airlines’ tracking system, which depends on a bar code being correctly scanned, was reporting incorrect information to staff, and they were reflecting that information to the customer. Yes, the customer was telling them he had different information, but all they have to go on is their own system, which to be fair, moves a huge amount of luggage around correctly every day. 

AppleZulu said:

“Lying” suggests the airlines knew where the luggage was and intentionally said it was in a different location. It’s much more likely here that the airlines’ tracking system, which depends on a bar code being correctly scanned, was reporting incorrect information to staff, and they were reflecting that information to the customer. Yes, the customer was telling them he had different information, but all they have to go on is their own system, which to be fair, moves a huge amount of luggage around correctly every day. 

So this isn’t about anyone lying, it’s about a customer convincing airline staff that he has different, more accurate info, and that, based on his info, they need to pull a person off of whatever task they’re normally doing, send them to the general area where the customer sees his luggage pinging, find it, and return it correctly to their system for final delivery. It’s not that they shouldn’t be expected to do that, but it’s at least realistic to understand what that means in the context of a system that’s still moving millions of other bags to their destination. 

Airlines do correctly deliver an enormous volume of luggage every day, and people forget what a logistical triumph that is. The problem is that, when presented proof that the system has failed in a specific instance, the typical airline response is that the customer is wrong. The airline here did lie that it knew where the bag was and when and how it would be returned. You're right that it wasn't lying in the usual criminal sense, but it was a known falsehood: A quick check by airline staff in the airports involved would have confirmed that.

AppleZulu said:

“Lying” suggests the airlines knew where the luggage was and intentionally said it was in a different location. It’s much more likely here that the airlines’ tracking system, which depends on a bar code being correctly scanned, was reporting incorrect information to staff, and they were reflecting that information to the customer. Yes, the customer was telling them he had different information, but all they have to go on is their own system, which to be fair, moves a huge amount of luggage around correctly every day. 

So this isn’t about anyone lying, it’s about a customer convincing airline staff that he has different, more accurate info, and that, based on his info, they need to pull a person off of whatever task they’re normally doing, send them to the general area where the customer sees his luggage pinging, find it, and return it correctly to their system for final delivery. It’s not that they shouldn’t be expected to do that, but it’s at least realistic to understand what that means in the context of a system that’s still moving millions of other bags to their destination. 

Yeah but who wants to read an article titled "Traveler finds bag faster with AirTag"? AI is dependent on Ads and that requires clicks, hyperbole gets clicks. 

AppleZulu said:

“Lying” suggests the airlines knew where the luggage was and intentionally said it was in a different location. It’s much more likely here that the airlines’ tracking system, which depends on a bar code being correctly scanned, was reporting incorrect information to staff, and they were reflecting that information to the customer. Yes, the customer was telling them he had different information, but all they have to go on is their own system, which to be fair, moves a huge amount of luggage around correctly every day. 

So this isn’t about anyone lying, it’s about a customer convincing airline staff that he has different, more accurate info, and that, based on his info, they need to pull a person off of whatever task they’re normally doing, send them to the general area where the customer sees his luggage pinging, find it, and return it correctly to their system for final delivery. It’s not that they shouldn’t be expected to do that, but it’s at least realistic to understand what that means in the context of a system that’s still moving millions of other bags to their destination. 

This is a reasonable and non-pessimistic first take on these sort of incidents. Before accusing someone of lying we should first rule out incompetence, ineptitude, cluelessness, or making statements or reaching unsubstantiated conclusions based on inadequate, incorrect, and/or incomplete information, i.e., generalized stupidity. Additionally, a universal wildcard reason that pops up every now and then is "bad shit happens," like your bag is stolen, gets run over on the tarmac by a baggage handling cart, or is ripped apart by the baggage handling system. 

Sure, some people do lie, some of them with great frequency, without remorse, and with great impunity. Based on the one-sided narratives of many of these lost luggage sleuths, and the one presented above, I'd place my bet on incompetence and cluelessness being at the root of this particular problem. Hopefully the airlines will eventually see a need to upgrade their systems to provide better individual bag tracking that's on par with what AirTags provide. 

I suppose Apple could make it possible for you to temporarily share your AirTag with the airlines for a specific time window, one that you get to control, so they can access the inherent capabilities of the AirTag system too. But I doubt they have the financial means to take on the additional burden when they are already stretched to their limits, and beyond. Plus, as AppleZulu said, they handle an enormous number of bags and I'd bet their failure rate (lost bags/number of bags) is actually quite small. Nobody is posting to Facebook or Twitter-X about their successful baggage handling experience because good news is never newsworthy.

cincytee said:

AppleZulu said:

“Lying” suggests the airlines knew where the luggage was and intentionally said it was in a different location. It’s much more likely here that the airlines’ tracking system, which depends on a bar code being correctly scanned, was reporting incorrect information to staff, and they were reflecting that information to the customer. Yes, the customer was telling them he had different information, but all they have to go on is their own system, which to be fair, moves a huge amount of luggage around correctly every day. 

So this isn’t about anyone lying, it’s about a customer convincing airline staff that he has different, more accurate info, and that, based on his info, they need to pull a person off of whatever task they’re normally doing, send them to the general area where the customer sees his luggage pinging, find it, and return it correctly to their system for final delivery. It’s not that they shouldn’t be expected to do that, but it’s at least realistic to understand what that means in the context of a system that’s still moving millions of other bags to their destination. 

Airlines do correctly deliver an enormous volume of luggage every day, and people forget what a logistical triumph that is. The problem is that, when presented proof that the system has failed in a specific instance, the typical airline response is that the customer is wrong. The airline here did lie that it knew where the bag was and when and how it would be returned. You're right that it wasn't lying in the usual criminal sense, but it was a known falsehood: A quick check by airline staff in the airports involved would have confirmed that.

Part of the point I was trying to make was that "a quick check by airline staff" is much easier said than done. One of the fundamental flaws of the current airline system is that they cut costs by eliminating most redundancies and surplus capacity from their operations. This is why small backups due to weather or mechanical problems can quickly cascade into system-wide interruptions. So chances are not great that there would be people available to stop whatever they're doing to go have a look around whenever a customer calls and says their Air Tag has located a bag at some location that's different from where the baggage tracking system reports the bag to be. A logistics system can be simultaneously very good at moving a million bags (or whatever) every day, and also very bad at seeking out the comparatively small number that get misdirected. It's likely that a significant percentage of misdirected bags get that way because of damage to or elimination of the airlines' barcoded baggage tags, which means there's a significant chance that an employee sent to look around may be reduced to trying to identify a bag by a customer's handwritten tag, or worse, the customer's phoned-in description of the bag, because the AirTag was inside the bag and all other identifying info was torn off with the handle in some mishap. All that potentially equals more time than "a quick check." It's likely that the normal method of finding lost bags involves periodic sweeps of baggage claim areas for loose bags, and then sending them to a location based on the best available information in the system and/or printed on the bag's tags. Then at that point, someone at any given airport location can start sorting out the mess all at once, instead of ad-hoc every time a customer calls.

None of this is to say that this sort of problem isn't immensely frustrating. Just that it may not be fair to say that the airline staff is lying when they use the internal information available to them for reporting where a customer's bag is.