Frequent Flyer Kelly Laing terbang dari Toronto ke Saint John bulan lalu dalam penerbangan yang sering dia ambil antara dua bandar itu, tetapi kali ini bagasi yang didaftar masuk hilang.

“It’s an hour and a half flight. I was there early, ready to go. I checked my one bag of luggage for that flight, got on the airline. It was again a little delayed. I landed in Saint John, got off right away, went to the baggage pick-up and my luggage wasn’t there,” kata Laing, ternyata bukan dia seorang sahaja yang begnya belum tiba.

“There was about between 30 to 50 of us who didn’t have their luggage … the Memorial Cup was happening in Saint John, which is a huge hockey tournament here in Canada and I know a lot of individuals on that flight were coming in for the game and even their luggage was lost,” tambahnya.

Nasib baik untuk Laing, dia telah berfikir ke hadapan dan meletakkan Apple AirTag di dalam beg pakaiannya.

“First thing I did was flip open my phone, look for my AirTag to find my luggage, and I could see that its location was saying Toronto Pearson,” katanya.

Laing ialah seorang pemain golf yang kerap mengembara untuk bersukan dan telah meletakkan Apple AirTags dalam beg golfnya supaya dia boleh menjejaki item tersebut.

“Golf equipment is quite expensive … Those items do tend to go missing or get lost. They’re just irregular items,” katanya.

Dalam perjalanan dari Toronto ke Saint John ini, Laing memutuskan untuk memasukkan AirTag ke dalam beg pakaiannya untuk “peace of mind.”

“I thought I would put it in my own luggage because of all the delays and cancellations with Canadian domestic flights as of recently and I’m really glad that I did that,” jelasnya.

Laing membuat beberapa siri video dan menyiarkannya di TikTok sambil menceritakan perjalanan bagasi yang didaftar masuk dari Toronto.

““So this is an Apple AirTag, I have it in this little holder with this little clip that keeps it secure, it also is personalized with my initial. You can see here it says Apple AirTag and it’s awesome and I basically wouldn’t travel without one,” kata Laing dalam salah satu daripada beberapa video TikTok beliau.

Apple AirTag berharga sekitar USD$40 dan pakar teknologi Kris Abel menjelaskan cara ia berfungsi.

“It’s emitting every now and then a wireless signal — a little tiny beacon, as Apple calls it — just to let any iPhone or smartphone nearby know that it’s near and ideally, your phone is constantly listening just to let you know that this thing is okay,” katanya.

Abel berkata AirTags amat berbaloi supaya pengguna berasa selesa mengetahui barangan mereka selamat.

“This is one of the big sources of anxiety is, ‘Oh, do I have all my stuff? Do I have my passport?’ You know, those kinds of things. So it’s always kind of that reassurance of, ‘Oh, good, yes, I do have it’,” katanya lagi.

AirTags tidak perlu dicas, kata Abel, kerana ia beroperasi dengan bateri yang boleh bertahan selama sekitar setahun.

“It’s going to let you know when that battery goes down low and you have to replace it. But a year is a very long time for something that’s sending out a signal. Of course, it’s not using that signal all the time like your phone does, but a year is a really good long time and that’s kind of reassuring,” tambahnya.

Apabila Laing mendarat di Saint John dan mendapati bagasinya hilang, dia berkata pegawai lapangan terbang tidak dapat memberikan sebarang penjelasan. Laing juga berkata dia cuba menghubungi Air Canada tetapi terpaksa menunggu selama dua jam dalam panggilan.

“No notifications from Air Canada, no emails updating us on our luggage. The only thing I had was that tracker and if I didn’t have it, I would probably be worrying a lot more,” katanya.

Selama lima hari, Laing berkata dia menjejaki bagasinya pada iPhonenya, terima kasih kepada AirTag.

“On the app on Find My Device, you can see exactly where your luggage is, where that AirTag is. So I was watching it for five days. Pearson day one: not moving; day two: not moving; day three: not moving … luckily enough, day five I saw it had gotten to Moncton and then it made its way to Saint John,” katanya.

Laing kemudian pergi ke lapangan terbang, memberikan kad pengenalannya kepada pegawai lapangan terbang dan mengambil bagasinya.

“I was just lucky that I had a tracker in there,” kata Laing.

Global News menghubungi Air Canada untuk mendapatkan ulasan mengenai cerita ini tetapi tidak menerima respons.