68-Year-Old Uses AirTag (and Twitter) to Find the Bike His Airline Lost (cnn.com) 99
An anonymous reader shared this story from CNN:
Barry Sherry was traveling from his home in Virginia to Europe for the cycling trip of a lifetime: a week riding through the Swiss Alps, followed by another in Luxembourg, where his cycling group was riding with two former Tour de France competitors, and then a third week cycling in Finland with friends. It was, he says, to be his last cycling trip to Europe. "I'm 68 — I'm getting old," he says... While his suitcase arrived on the carousel, his [$8,000] bike — zipped up in its carrier — had become one of the 7.6 out of every 1,000 items of luggage to be, as the industry coyly terms it, "mishandled." In other words: lost...
The "Find My" app, which traces Apple devices including AirTags, showed the bike at Heathrow... British Airways has up to six flights per day from Heathrow to Zurich, but as each day came and went, none of them had Sherry's bike on board... Each day, he updated his location on the British Airways website, and each day, his bike failed to arrive — or move from Heathrow, according to the AirTag. By this point Sherry was tweeting the airline daily, showing them screenshots of the mapped location of the bike, but getting generic responses from British Airways that he believes were bots... That evening, he tweeted the location of the bag again, tagging American Airlines (who'd sold him the ticket) and Heathrow Airport, too. "AA seemed to have a human at the other end, and I thought maybe they could reach a human at BA," he says.
Was it that final tweet, tagging AA and Heathrow, that did it? Sherry will never know — though he suspects the daily tweets showing screenshots of the bike's location were the key. After his tweet on Thursday night to all three accounts, on Friday morning he checked his Find My app, and saw his bike was on the move... "Had I not started an annoying Twitter campaign, I do think it would have remained at Heathrow until I could have talked to someone face to face."
CNN reports that Sherry's week in Luxembourg "went ahead as planned, with Sherry adding that he was particuarly attached to his bike because "Fourteen years ago I was diagnosed with cancer, and the only time I wasn't thinking about it was when I was riding my bike."
He'd put the AirTag with his bike "after hearing other cyclists rave about them."
The "Find My" app, which traces Apple devices including AirTags, showed the bike at Heathrow... British Airways has up to six flights per day from Heathrow to Zurich, but as each day came and went, none of them had Sherry's bike on board... Each day, he updated his location on the British Airways website, and each day, his bike failed to arrive — or move from Heathrow, according to the AirTag. By this point Sherry was tweeting the airline daily, showing them screenshots of the mapped location of the bike, but getting generic responses from British Airways that he believes were bots... That evening, he tweeted the location of the bag again, tagging American Airlines (who'd sold him the ticket) and Heathrow Airport, too. "AA seemed to have a human at the other end, and I thought maybe they could reach a human at BA," he says.
Was it that final tweet, tagging AA and Heathrow, that did it? Sherry will never know — though he suspects the daily tweets showing screenshots of the bike's location were the key. After his tweet on Thursday night to all three accounts, on Friday morning he checked his Find My app, and saw his bike was on the move... "Had I not started an annoying Twitter campaign, I do think it would have remained at Heathrow until I could have talked to someone face to face."
CNN reports that Sherry's week in Luxembourg "went ahead as planned, with Sherry adding that he was particuarly attached to his bike because "Fourteen years ago I was diagnosed with cancer, and the only time I wasn't thinking about it was when I was riding my bike."
He'd put the AirTag with his bike "after hearing other cyclists rave about them."
Airlines are going to have to up their game (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Airlines are going to have to up their game (Score:4, Interesting)
This is not always simple lost luggage. Many times these bags have been targeted by thieves and removed form the normal luggage handling process. We had a bag go lost for a day on a mountaineering expedition. It arrived the next day seemingly intact, but upon opening it all of the expensive, specialized cold weather gear had been stolen. Caused us a giant problem having to find semi-workable gear in a few hours before the group left without us. We froze our butts off on the mountain.
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This theft also occurred at Heathrow.
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This is not always simple lost luggage. Many times these bags have been targeted by thieves and removed form the normal luggage handling process.
Airports are supposed to be reasonably secure facilities. If luggage thefts are happening there it clearly requires a massive overhaul of human resources vetting, and even tighter perimeter controls.
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Lol, even the TSA, the supposed law enforcement is in on the theft. The best option is to bag everything valuable together with your gun.
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I'd worry about losing a gun to theft as well. On the other hand, if it makes the airlines and TSA more vigilant, I'm willing to lock up and check an airsoft pistol.
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I'd worry about losing a gun to theft as well. On the other hand, if it makes the airlines and TSA more vigilant, I'm willing to lock up and check an airsoft pistol.
Bags with guns are tracked and managed very closely. It's a pain in the ass, actually, because they make you go meet a TSA agent or cop (usually a cop) to receive your bag personally, and they wrap the bag in numerous giant zip ties to make sure no one can get into it. Those are the visible parts of the process, I'm sure there's a lot more behind the scenes.
I think if a gun went missing from the baggage -- inside the allegedly "sterile" perimeter! -- someone would be in serious trouble. I doubt it happens
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Until the TSA steals your gun too. https://www.latimes.com/archiv... [latimes.com]
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But then there is hell to pay. Guns are supposed to be checked in and locked and supervised with a chain of custody.
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Re: Airlines are going to have to up their game (Score:2)
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Let's just say that there are way too many holes for it to work. First, the only thing protecting the "inside' from the "outside" is a chain link fence. That's it. A few miles of chain link fencing is what keeps people out. And most of it isn't patrolled. And people gather at particular points legitimately - air
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The airlines know where things are. It's simply they don't care.
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Everyone I know, refuses to check bags, packing in a carry-on instead! At least, they do so when at all possible.
Re:Airlines are going to have to up their game (Score:4, Insightful)
And thanks to those people I couldn't find a space for my small carry on anymore on my last flight.
Re: Airlines are going to have to up their game (Score:1)
It never happens because person don't care about fucking other people over, so they throw their overstuffed carry on up there sideways, and their handbags, and their McDonalds bags, and so forth. These same people often have the unmitigated gall to g
Re: Airlines are going to have to up their game (Score:4, Informative)
Every airline has maximum dimensions for carry-on luggage, based on the size of the overhead storage bins on their planes If you put the bags in the right way, and they're all within those dimensions, then everybody's carry on luggage gets to be in the cabin.
Nope. At least until all airlines have all of their fleets upgraded like United started recently:
https://www.businessinsider.com/united-updating-planes-with-in-flight-entertainment-screens-2021-6 [businessinsider.com]
tl;dr;
Only United planes bought after 2021 will have enough room for everyone's carry-on luggage.
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In my experience (with non-US airlines) they tend to be quite lax about only bringing one carry-on item. People who bring two are expected to store one under the seat though.
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This is the rule on US domestic flights: 1 in the overhead, small bag under your seat.
Much like your experience though the rules are quite lax and not evenly enforced. People often have oversized items, put the under seat in the overhead, coats, double bags somewhow and throw high airline baggage fees and you have a process that I find in all but name a "pay for play" just the same, buy a better seat, get on earlier, make sure you get an overhead.
I am totally exaggerating but to me, the boarding process of
Re: Airlines are going to have to up their game (Score:1)
In the same way that widening highways doesn't actually reduce traffic congestion, creating more space to store luggage will mean more people will bring more of their stuff to fill up that space, at the expense of whoever shows up slightly after them.
Re: Airlines are going to have to up their game (Score:1)
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I'd thank the airlines, instead of "those people." They are the ones who choose to pack people in so tightly that all the bags won't fit.
The good news is, even if your carry-on won't fit, they'll "gate check" it for you. No cost to you like regular checked baggage, and they bring it out to the jet bridge instead of making you go to the baggage carousel.
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Yes, I agree that the airlines do anything to encourage NOT checking your bags - from additional fees to long waiting times - but I have stuff in my carry on that I need during the flight or that I do not want to risk loosing. Medicine, tablet, passport, some additional snacks and my towel.
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There's an answer to that problem. In addition to a carry-on, you are allowed another small bag that must fit under the seat. Such a bag is big enough to hold those essentials.
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That's where I'd prefer to have my feet.
So because I pay for my checked baggage my flight should be even less comfortable because I only have a small carry on packed? Why not make the people with the oversized carry-on give up some of their personal space?
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Here's the thing. People *don't* actually bring oversized carry-ons, because they literally won't fit in the bin. So your complaint doesn't make sense.
I'm tall, I too want to put my feet under the seat in front of me. Guess what, I can do that even with a backpack there!
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Your sauna towel is hardly the definition of "essentials." You need your medicine, and only you can provide it, your hotel or resort supplies towels.
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Well, I see you really view your towel as a prized possession. I wish there were more options for transporting your towel on flights. Perhaps you should consider bus travel, where there's a lot more room for luggage.
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Perhaps you should consider bus travel,
Or hitchhiking :-)
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Whoosh... (The sound of a Vorgon frieghter whizzing high over your head)
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I'd thank the airlines, instead of "those people." They are the ones who choose to pack people in so tightly that all the bags won't fit.
Yeah I thank them greatly that I can fly across the continent for the same price as an evening dinner for 2.
Re: Airlines are going to have to up their game (Score:2)
You're an expensive date!
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Personally, I don't eat at restaurants that cost that much.
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Perhaps the airlines could set up some dedicated staff to allow their customers to help them fix their errors.
Except that's not the case. Lost luggage doesn't simply get handled on a "who sees it first" basis. It gets sent to a destination. It gets given time, and then in bulk it gets put into storage and in bulk it gets handled.
Airtags do nothing other than frustrate passengers who think that their suitcase is the only one lost and that airlines are desperate to find it for them. The reality is the luggage is just part of a process and that process is for the most cost effective and efficient processing by airline
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Airtags do nothing other than frustrate passengers who think that their suitcase is the only one lost and that airlines are desperate to find it for them.
If everyone has airtags none of it is really lost, the customers knows where it is, it's just the airline has no idea. It should be in the interest of the airline to fill in gaps in their knowledge where it is virtually handed to them. Regardless of how optimized their processes, some percentage of loss is expected and "acceptable". What has changed now is they have to publicly answer for shitty customer service, because customers can now do a better job tracking their luggage on their own than the airli
Re: Airlines are going to have to up their game (Score:2)
Let's not soften the language.
Theft.
The luggage and containers don't simply vanish to the far corners of the airports. Very often they are intentionally pulled aside by thieves, searched for valuables, and discarded somewhere unobserved.
The airlines consider it "mishandled" and "lost", but it is employees in a secure facility boosting their wages through theft.
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Nice conspiracy. But the overwhelming majority of luggage (even those sent to wrong airports) aren't victims of theft. Theft does occur, in most cases that results in either a) luggage not arriving ever, or b) luggage arriving on time with an item missing. And the former case is vanishingly rare.
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It is of no use to the people who had their luggage lost to say "the overwhelming majority of luggage aren't victims of theft". It is not about the luggage that does not get lost. It is about the luggage that does get lost. And I do wonder what portion of the lost luggage is due to theft and what portion is some other reason. Of course this is impossible to measure. And that's why people use airtags and that's why airlines (and airports) need to up their
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It should be in the interest of the airline to fill in gaps in their knowledge where it is virtually handed to them.
You're presuming there's a gap in knowledge. There's not. Most of the time a "mishandled" bag has all identifying markings on it tying it to its destination, and its customer contact details. And at the end of the day it get bulk scanned and reassigned. Luggage is rarely ever actually "lost" it just ends up where it shouldn't be.
If a bag is truly lost then it's not the airline who can help you, it's the police, since truly lost luggage is nearly always the result of theft.
because customers can now do a better job tracking their luggage on their own than the airlines multi-billion dollar logistics systems can manage
How much do you want to pay for you
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And what do you do with realtime information? It doesn't make planes fly on a different schedule. Even if you tweet the airline today that your bag is 2m from the emergency exit next to carrousel number 5 in Heathrow Terminal 4, it won't reach you any earlier than the next flight regardless.
As I mentioned in a different reply when checked bags get on flights without their corresponding passenger, that is a security issue and they watch for this already. If they pay the same attention to passengers getting on flights without their checked bags all will be well. If your bag is on a different flight from you, it is already special, because it is breaking the rules.
Airlines don't give a f**k, and they lie. (Score:2)
My ex and I were traveling from the US to Stockholm (via Schipol). Her bag didn't make it. We were getting on a ship the next morning. Well, of course they didn't find it. But they kept giving me bogus info about the bag's location. Then I remembered I had used AMEX to buy the ticket. KLM had no compunctions about lying to me, but AMEX had some clout. Three days later (had to be that, they could/would not deliver to St. Petersburg), our bag showed up.
As a final f***-you to me, one hour after our b
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Maybe the airlines should just buy a load of Bluetooth tracking tags and attach them to customer's bags.
They would only be needed for checked-in bags, and they could offer a return fee if customers hand them back at the end of their journey. They could probably buy them in bulk quite cheaply.
Even RFID would be a nice upgrade over the basic barcodes they seem to be using at the moment. Those are so cheap they are disposable, used by some clothing stores for example. At Uniqlo you just put your shopping baske
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Maybe the airlines should just buy a load of Bluetooth tracking tags and attach them to customer's bags.
Maybe make enhanced additional luggage tracking a paid upgrade. It would give the airlines time to get some experience with more modern technology than what they have now.
Ageism (Score:5, Insightful)
I know somebody who's 70 and used an AirTag to track a valuable item through baggage handling. People are hung-up thinking that all old people are tech stupid or unaware. They forget that people that age (and older) invented a lot of the tech they take for granted.
This person's age is absolutely irrelevant to the story.
I've known people older that that were were friggin' kernel developers for cryin' out loud.
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I know somebody who's 70 and used an AirTag to track a valuable item through baggage handling. People are hung-up thinking that all old people are tech stupid or unaware.
My thinking exactly. I'm 66 and it would never cross my mind to think "Wow! I'm 66 and yet I can understand how to use an AirTag!!" I've been writing programs since 1974.
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And getting a bit old myself, failing to spot "older that that were" which was supposed to be "older than that that were", which is confusing and should probably be, "older than that who were".
Guaranteed I made yet anotehr typo trying to fix this.
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The man's age is relevant because his last biking trip to Europe — of his life, ever — could have been ruined by the airline's incompetence, were it not for the tracking device. The man's a cancer survivor and understands what it means to have limited time left.
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The whole story is irrelevant. "Wealthy traveler uses product as it was intended, buy this product to be like them" isn't a story, it's an ad.
Saved my trip a few times (Score:5, Interesting)
I have an airtag in my luggage and it saved my trip a few times.
Not long ago, had a flight on 2 separate tickets, but by the same airline (United). Asked the agents to check the bag through to the final destination (it's getting tougher lately as agents know less and have less control over things), they did issue the bag tag all the way, but did it incorrectly (as it turned out, did not update the PNR, anyway).
So, I am at LGA, connecting, when I see that my bag moved from the general baggage handling area and back to the gate of my original flight (so, likely, about to be returned to the origin airport). Still tracks as "all is well" in the airline app. As I was at the lounge at the time - grabbed the lounge agent, and had to explain the situation *very insistently*. They did try to get rid of me first (as in "all is well, no need to check") but finally got the agent to call down to baggage handling. Lo-and-behold, my bag is, in fact, about to get back on the flight home, whereas I am about to get on the flight across the pond. So they did move it and someone made sure the bag flies with me. Even got a sort of a non-apology apology (dont' care about that - just want my stuff)
If not for the airtag, I would not have known and, moreover, had nothing to convince the airline staff to look into this.
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And what are the other times? You said a few. But it sounds like your case is a truly insanely rare instance of where it would help. The vast majority of people who use airtags don't check anything until their bag is lost, at which point is it part of a normal airline/airport process and any complaints you make are irrelevant.
I fly constantly. Like literally I have 3 intercontinental flights in the next 5 weeks and that's ordinary for my job. I can count on one hand the number of times my luggage has been l
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My luggage AirTag saved me just two weeks ago, when my planned day of travel Baltimore-Charlotte-Phoenix was scrambled by storms in Baltimore that delayed my departure for three hours. While waiting on the taxiway, I was able to reschedule my connection in Charlotte, but by the time my flight neared Charlotte there was a further ATC delay in landing, causing me to miss the rescheduled connection too. I eventually arrived in Phoenix late that night.
At baggage claim, I wondered: did my bag make it through al
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For the most part airtags exist just to anger their users.
I don't use any of that, but I think it helps infrequent leisure travellers to lower their stress level, by giving them a false sense of confidence that they will be able to solve faster any problem that might appear.
In your case you are a professional frequent traveller, you probably travel light, everything of value is from your company and is insured, and you also have a worldwide assistance that helps with any problem you might encounter in a far away country. In case of a problem, you tell the customer
Re: Saved my trip a few times (Score:2)
If my bike was 8k, it would have a lot of emotional value to me too :p
Requirement to provide a human? (Score:3)
As AI/bots proliferate, seems to me appropriate to consider requiring companies to provide an option to speak to a Real Person (tm). That would be in keeping with the relatively aggressive claims EU regulators have made for other requirements. Yeah, I'm sure companies will complain about the cost. But mebbe a way for companies to manage this is through -cost avoidance-, like not losing people's luggage (and then providing no significant update through automated mechanisms.)
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I am oboard with this almost 100% for legislation that any company needs a phone system that primarily facilitates connecting customers to human representatives.
It's 2023, not the early aughts, we can accept that a vast majority of people have access to phones and computers and for I would almost feel fair to say 99% of phone call to companies it is because those systems have failed and requires human involvement. How many problems in a day are solved by "automated phone systems" when the information is ju
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It's frustrating for me to go through the damn phone response tree to hear all the stuff that I've already looked at on the website, which didn't answer my question/solve my problem. Hence the value of those "GetHuman" sites that give you the optimal keystrokes to navigate through the phone tree. The worst of all is when I'm calling to resolve a website problem, to hear "if you don't want to wait, please visit our website" !!
CVS, by the way, has some of the worst customer facing IT of any company I routin
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A human that can do what? Initiate some sort of customer service request? A bot can do that and give you a tracking number.
A requirement that requests be acted upon in a timely manner would be more useful. But if there is an option to check "Can't find. No further action possible" what good will that do for the traveler?
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Never under-estimate the value of public shaming to get a corporation off its butt!
(and Twitter) (Score:1)
... (and Twitter) ...
It's 'X' now ... which all by itself makes this story WAY cooler.
Use the Fucking Phone To Call a Human (Score:2)
Instead of tweeting and using web forms, try using the god damned phone and get a human on the line. It's harder for people to ignore you then.
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Instead of tweeting and using web forms, try using the god damned phone and get a human on the line. It's harder for people to ignore you then.
Won't make a difference. Airlines do not give a shit about you knowing where your bag is. They don't go and look for it specially. Your bag ends up at a wrong airport in an unclaimed baggage room and then gets bulk handled at the end of the day manually and redirected to its destination. They don't care if you know where it is, they don't have a process or a person who will go and get it for you.
Tweeting is so much faster than wasting your time on hold, and equally as effective.
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They don't care if you know where it is, they don't have a process or a person who will go and get it for you.
We know. So are you happy about that or just resigned? I think advocating for improving that process is the whole point of this discussion. When everyone with a smartphone knows better than "the system" you seem to revere maybe it is time for some improvements.
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So are you happy about that or just resigned?
Yeah I'm happy about it. They have a process that does a great job at recovering the overwhelming majority of luggage to the point that actually completely losing luggage is an insanely rare event in an industry that ships 4.7billion people around the world every year.
The idea that random chaos of people running around looking for individual pieces of luggage being better is a fantasy. Actual functioning systems (which lost luggage processes are) are almost always better than chaos. You may have success get
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The idea that random chaos of people running around looking for individual pieces of luggage being better is a fantasy.
The mail system does it. Open a lost package case with them and an actual person will check where it should have been scanned vs where it actually was scanned and try to track it down. I've had several packages found this way that likely would not have ever arrived otherwise. Baggage systems use the same sort of scanning regime. It is not rocket surgery. If your package was supposed to go from X to Y to Z, and it never gets to Z, was last scanned at X, and the customer can track it to X (or maybe it we
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Okay, get an actual human who works at Google and is able to change stuff on the phone...
With a lot of companies these days it is hard.
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I couldn't even get a human from the trash hauling company when one of their trucks damaged my retaining wall. Had to do their stupid chat bot first and then someone called me. If you call their number there is literally no way to reach a person.
Customer service (Score:2)
I really think any business that deals with the public should be legally required to have human customer service available 24/7. Also you should be able to escalate to a human in the event you get an automated response that doesn't address your issue.
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I really think any business that deals with the public should be legally required to have human customer service available 24/7. Also you should be able to escalate to a human in the event you get an automated response that doesn't address your issue.
To what end? Airlines do have human customer service available 24/7, and they can do fuck all about your bag. Your lost bag gets handled as part of a process. The overwhelming majority of bags get returned, and airlines do not go out of their way to do anything, because quite often it's not even their job, but rather the job of the subcontracted baggage handling firm for a specific airport.
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Well, first sometimes you do get status information from the human looking at systems you don't have access to. And sometimes you can get someone to actually for example call the airport or do some other escalation.
but rather the job of the subcontracted baggage handling firm for a specific airport. As a matter of principle (and I believe a matter of law, although IANAL), airlines are still responsible for stuff they contract out.
68 year-old? (Score:3)
Re: why mention age (Score:1)
Indeed! The young whippersnappers are baffled by the non-young.
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It's newsworthy, because young French majors are amazed that anyone over 40 even exists. They have heard rumors, but they don't see them anywhere in their twitch feed.
What I'm missing from this post.... (Score:1)
The guy said, he kept on twittering about the missing bike daily for several days....
Did he at any moment think of contacting the airlines customer service? What did THEY say when he gave the the location of his missing bike?
When I have a problem with a company, I contact them first, before whining on social networks.
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I know this is slashdot and therefore people don't RTFA, but.... RTFA. The question you're asking is answered in the first 1/3rd of the article.
Twitter? (Score:1)
What's a twitter, precious?
Guess this guy made it in under the wire, lucky for him. Now, someone go steal Elon Musk and hide him somewhere for...let's say fifty years.
Tile (Score:2)
Typical BA (Score:2)
British Airways has always been notorious for losing bags. The only time I ever didn't get my bag was with tada - British Airways.
They aren't much better than a bucket shop airline these days.
Heathrow lost my luggage (Score:2)
7.6 out of 1000 mishandled? (Score:2)
That's a horrifying statistic. Seems like you'd be smarter to courier your luggage to your destination.
I'm also 68 (Score:2)
I use sendmybag instead of the airlines, they are apparently incapable of NOT losing baggage.
That way my stuff is already in my hotel room when I arrive at the destination, no schlepping.
News? (Score:1)
his airline (Score:2)
If he owns the airline, you'd think he'd have some pull to make them find the luggage without using airtags.