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Lufthansa Walks Back Their AirTag Ban – Goes From “Dangerous” to All-Ok

2 years ago
2 Comments
by Charlie
a close-up of a luggage
Written by Charlie

Lufthansa has walked back their Apple AirTag ban – going from them being “dangerous” to they “do not pose a safety risk”. And they shift the blame elsewhere, of course.

Last week, Lufthansa started talking about how they wanted a ban on the Apple AirTags, saying they were dangerous. In fact, they even did go so far as to say that the AirTags were banned. Now, they walk that back in an odd way.

Lufthansa Walks Back AirTag Ban

Here was Lufthansa’s response the other day regarding AirTags, saying that they were indeed banned.

AirTags as “dangerous” items – I am sure this was something that Apple did not want to hear from one of the world’s large airlines! In fact, Apple even said this: “AirTags are compliant with international airline travel safety regulations for carry-on and checked baggage.” However, Lufthansa had put the decision on the German Aviation Authority, saying it was them that had classified the AirTags as hazardous and dangerous for checked luggage.

Now, Lufthansa walks it all back, saying that they have received word from that same authority that it is now ok for Apple AirTags to be used in checked luggage. They said that “The German Aviation Authorities (Luftfahrt-Bundesamt) confirmed today, that they share our risk assessment that tracking devices with very low battery and transmission power in checked luggage do not pose a safety risk. With that these devices are allowed on Lufthansa flights.”

Going further, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency said that their own regulations do “not in itself ban or allow” the trackers but leave it up to the carriers to decide. In other words, the decision was always with Lufthansa and they went full against it citing them as “dangerous”.

This goes back to my original thinking on this – I think Lufthansa didn’t want customers knowing where their bags were since the baggage handling was so messed up this summer and travelers are still having issues. I think they thought this was an easy way to stop the onslaught of customers pointing out that they knew exactly where their bags were, while the airline said they did not know where the bags were at the time (due to staffing issues, most likely). I know these stories from many reports from travelers so this could definitely have been the reasoning behind Lufthansa’s desire to ban AirTags.

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About the author

Charlie

Charlie has been an avid traveler and runner for many years. He has run in marathons around the world for less than it would cost to travel to the next town - all as a result of collecting and using miles and points. Over the years, he has flown hundreds of thousands of miles and collected millions of miles and points.
Now he uses this experience and knowledge to help others through Running with Miles.

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2 Comments

  • If Charlie and Running With Miles too 1/2 of a second they would have found out that LH never did have this policy in the first place and therefore they are not walking back anything… just shutting down uninformed bloggers

    • Thanks for the comment. I went with what their own people and departments said in the first place. They clearly said that they had to be banned and even said they were banned. If you argue that the person on Twitter misspoke, then I would say that this is a bigger problem that a corporate Twitter account has people that are speaking on their own perspective instead of company policy.
      And, yes, what they did was a walk back after the blowback. Thanks for stopping by.