Apple is the secret winner amid airport chaos as Google search for AirTags spikes

One of the world’s biggest companies is benefiting from the chaos travellers are facing at airports around the globe.

As flights are delayed or cancelled, luggage is lost and airports are in disarray, it appears there has been one winner amid the chaos: Apple.

While the company would not release sales figures, Google data obtained by news.com.au shows searches for AirTags in Australia are at an all-time high. As are searches for “luggage tracker”.

Searches for AirTags – a luggage tag that owners can track in order to find the item it is attached to – have more than doubled (up 123 per cent) in the past month alone, and Australia had the fifth highest search interest worldwide.

The data is interesting given the product was launched more than a year ago.

Google searches for "luggage tracker" are at the highest they have ever been.

Google searches for AirTag are also at an all-time high despite the product launching more than a year ago.

Just last month, a Victorian man revealed how he found his own luggage using an AirTag after his bag was missing for weeks.

Shane Miller said he never received his check-in luggage after returning home from a cycling holiday in Europe in mid-June.

Fed-up waiting to hear back from the airline, he ended up locating his bag under a pile of other luggage in an office at Melbourne Airport.

Lost luggage has become a problem within Australia and globally. Picture: Chris Kidd

Prices at $45 for one and $149 for four, they aren’t the cheapest luggage tag in the world, but for most travellers the cost is certainly cheaper than losing their entire luggage.

AirTags, released in April last year, can be placed on your belongings and tracked on your phone or other devices using Apple’s Find My app.

The tag uses a secure Bluetooth signal that can be detected by other nearby devices. These devices send the location of your AirTag to the iCloud, which then makes it appear in the Find My app.

It is Apple’s own version of Tile technology, which launched in 2013. The Apple product is also by no means the only Bluetooth tracker on the market, with many others available, ranging in price and design.

The AirTag was released in April 2021, but it was not the first Bluetooth tracker tag on the market. Picture: Apple

Australian cyber safety expert Susan McLean said she had caught about 200 flights a year for the last decade and had never contemplated getting a tracking tag until now due to the ongoing issues with luggage.

Ms McLean said she had never lost a bag until a recent flight from Melbourne to Adelaide.

Ahead of a trip to Europe going through Heathrow Airport, she decided she needed to buy an AirTag.

Heathrow Airport in London has been so congested that last week it introduced a limit of 100,000-passengers per day.

Mountains of lost bags seen at Heathrow Airport in London. Picture: Twitter/Aiden Ryan

Twitter user Aiden Ryan shared these pictures of lost bags at Heathrow. Picture: Twitter/Aiden Ryan

“I wouldn’t travel anywhere without them now,” Ms McLean told news.com.au on the way to Singapore on Tuesday. “I’ve used them on two flights domestically and they’ve been awesome.”

She said as she was waiting for her baggage at Sydney Airport on Monday night she could watch her bag coming towards her on her phone, before it came out on the baggage carousel in real life.

Melbourne woman Dannie Galea told news.com.au she rushed out to get AirTags in the days before her trip to New Zealand last week after hearing horror stories of travellers losing their luggage.

“I’m glad we bought them for peace of mind,” she said. “The hardest part was actually finding them in stock.”

Ms Galea said she tried multiple electronics stores, including Apple and ended up ordering on Amazon.

“Thank god for next day delivery,” she said.