What happens if you leave your phone on a flight?
Less than half of phones lost on major UK airlines are returned to passengers, finds Which? investigation
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Your support makes all the difference.Phones – a boarding pass, wallet and camera all in one – very rarely leave our hands while travelling, but what happens when you lose your treasured device on a flight?
A Which? investigation has revealed that less than half of phones lost on major UK airlines are successfully returned to their owners as carriers outsource responsibility for lost items.
The consumer group deliberately misplaced a phone on a British Airways, easyJet, Jet2 and Ryanair aircraft between 2 September and 20 October 2024.
Which? researchers then activated Apple’s ‘Find My Phone’ tracking feature and remotely registered the devices as lost.
British Airways uses a third party, Smarte Carte, to manage its lost property. Researchers were unable to deal with BA directly, even immediately after the phone went missing on a flight from Larnaca, Cyprus, to London Heathrow, and it could be tracked to the plane.
Investigators reported that a day later, the phone had moved and could be seen about 15 miles from Heathrow Airport near Windsor Castle.
A police report confirmed that the address was not linked to anyone working at Heathrow, and the phone was not recovered.
Smarte Carte did not comment. However, a spokesperson for British Airways said: “Our crews remind customers upon arrival at their destination to check they have all their belongings before leaving the aircraft. In the unlikely event that belongings are left behind, we follow a process managed by Heathrow Airport and their third-party supplier, Smarte Carte, like other airlines at the airport.”
Which? researchers had a similar experience with easyJet after leaving a phone on a flight from Nice, France, to Luton.
The passengers were redirected to baggage handler Menzies, who told them to register the item as lost on another third-party website. However, no email confirmation arrived.
Lost property for Luton Airport told Which? it does not handle items left on planes, and easyJet sent no further communication that the phone had been found.
A spokesperson for easyJet said: “We have procedures in place to reunite customers with items they may have left behind when they are found on board or handed in and unfortunately this item wasn’t found onboard or handed in.”
Of the four ‘lost’ phones, just two – Jet2 and Ryanair – were recovered following the flight.
According to a survey of 16,982 Which? members last year, of 89 people who reported leaving a phone or iPad on a flight, only 48 per cent said that they had got it back.
A prompt experience with Jet2 required the phone owner to pay a fee of £27 to claim it back, while the phone abandoned on a Ryanair flight from Malta to Stansted made it to Bari, Italy, before being couriered back for a €60 (£50.50) fee.
Which? advises holidaymakers to check for gadget protection in travel insurance, have ‘Find My Phone’ (on iPhones) or ‘Find My Device’ (on Androids) turned on and make a note of a device’s IMEI number.
Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: “These days a phone is far from just a phone - it's your wallet, photo album, and when you’re flying, it’s more often than not your boarding pass, too. When passengers lose something so vital you would expect airlines to have systems in place to quickly and easily return it to you, but when we tried misplacing our own phones we found this was too often not the case.
“Frustratingly, in the vital first few hours after an item is lost, there’s no way of getting in touch with the airline to help. Even if you can see it's still on the plane, you’ll be directed to airport staff or a third-party company. How hard can it be for airlines, who have staff onboard, to organise for lost items to be handed in and secured so that their customers are reunited. As it stands, most carriers won’t even pick up the phone to help.”
For more travel news and advice, listen to Simon Calder’s podcast