Traveller uses AirTag to hone in on missing bag after week of no contact from airline, baggage carrier

After his luggage was missing for a week with no word from his airline, a Ballarat man used an AirTag to take matters into his own hands.

A man has documented the drastic steps he took to locate his missing luggage using an AirTag tracker.

A man whose luggage was missing for weeks has documented the drastic action he took to find the missing bag, eventually storming an airport office and using AirTag to track down his lost items.

Shane Miller, a technology expert and cycling enthusiast from Ballarat, said he never received his check-in luggage after returning home from a week-long holiday in Europe in mid-June.

His $800 bag contained more than $6500 worth of cycling gear, along with his personal belongings.

Shane Miller documented the search for his lost bag in a lengthy YouTube video, eventually tracing it to an office at Melbourne Airport.

In a video uploaded to his YouTube channel, Mr Miller says he was told he would not be receiving the suitcase on arrival.

He filed a lost luggage form with Singapore Airlines and their baggage carrier Swissport, but says he did not receive any updates for a week.

Mr Miller says he could not get through to customer service despite calling up to 16 times.

“I’ve had no indication whatsoever from the airline, Melbourne Airport or the baggage partner that my bag was even in Australia,” he says in the video.

The footage shows Miller using the Apple AirTag to locate his luggage under a pile in the Swissport office.

Using an Apple AirTag attached to his missing suitcase, Mr Miller took matters into his own hands.

In the video, he shows how the AirTag locator on his phone is able to lock onto the bluetooth signal from his Apple AirTag, which displays the bag as being at Melbourne Airport.

After finding his way to the Swissport office at the airport, Mr Miller eventually locates his suitcase sitting under a pile of other luggage.

“It’s this way, it’s this way, it’s right in here,” he says on camera as he finally locates the bag.

The video’s poetic timing comes as airlines struggle to keep up with a surge in demand, following a massive two-year lull due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

All over the world, chaotic scenes have been captured inside airports, with a video in London’s Heathrow Airport capturing hundreds of suitcases piled up from a “technical issue”.

In his video, Mr Miller says he was concerned about the “amount of bags” crammed in the office when he attended.

“I’m only one per cent of the story of the bags that I saw on the floor,” he says.