Airlines are leaving customers who lose their mobile phone on a plane ‘in the lurch’ (Image: Getty)
Airlines are either shirking or outsourcing responsibility for lost items like phones, a consumer group investigation has found.
Which? found that less than half (48%) of those who lost a phone on a flight had it successfully returned to them
The consumer advice group purchased four iPhones and deliberately left them on flights with four major UK airlines: British Airways, easyJet, Jet2 and Ryanair.
They even displayed a ‘this phone is lost’ message and contact details for the owner on the lockscreen, but only two of the devices were recovered.
The phones, left on a British Airways flight from Larnaca to Heathrow and an easyJet flight from Nice to Luton, were both lost for good.
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Which? said it was directed to easyJet’s baggage handler Menzies and BA’s lost property handler Smarte Carte.
The phone lost on the BA flight was shown via the Find my Phone app to have ended up in a cottage about 15 miles from Heathrow.
Which? reported this to the police, who visited to the cottage and spoke to the residents.
But by this time the phone had stopped broadcasting its location.
The phone lost on the easyJet was reported as missing on the on the flight provider’s website. A confirmation email was promised but did not arrive.
EasyJet didn’t offer any further advice or help in finding the phone, and it was never recovered.
The phones ‘lost’ on the Jet2 and Ryanair flights were recovered, although Jet2 charged a fee of £27 to claim it back.
The phone Which? abandoned on the Ryanair flight was also located using Find My Phone showing it made it from Stansted to its next stop in Bari, Italy before being spotted.
At Bari airport, a kindly airport employee phoned to say they’d found it – and it was couriered back for a 60 euro fee (£50).
Jodie Lopez lost her mobile phone on a flight between London and Lyon (Image: Jodie Lopez)
Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said airlines should have better systems in place to reunite owners with lost phones.
He said: “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.”
A spokesperson for British Airways, said the company follows a process managed by Heathrow Airport and its third-party supplier, Smarte Carte, like other airlines at the airport.
Smarte Carte did not provide a comment for publication and directed Which? to the airline.
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.”
How to keep your mobile phone safe on flights
Insurance for mobile phones
Make sure you know whether your valuables and gadgets are adequately protected before you travel. Most travel insurance policies won’t include mobile phone cover unless you add ‘gadget cover’ as an extra, but you may find you’re already covered under your home insurance policy. Always check for peace of mind.
Keep your tracking on
Make sure you have ‘Find My Phone’ (iPhones) or ‘Find My Device’ (Android) turned on at all times.
Make a note of your International Mobile Equipment Identity or IMEI
To improve your chances of recovering a phone, it’s worth making a note of the IMEI number (usually found in the ‘About’ section in your setting). Lost property offices and police will often ask for it to prove the phone is yours.
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‘I had to play detective to get my phone back after I lost it on an Easyjet flight’
Jodie Lopez, 46, lost her phone on a flight between Gatwick, London and Lyon in France in April 2024.
The mother of two believes her phone fell out of her pocket while she was helping her sons, age 7 and 10, off the plane.
« I was hold all their bags and in the kerfuffle of children dropping bags it must have fallen out. »
She was directed to the airline’s website but the phone number that didn’t work and there was never a reply from the email address on there.
« Luckily I speak French so when we went back to the airport to go home we went an hour early. I dragged the children around the airport speaking to people but I kept getting passed around. »
« We had to check in and after I checked in I told them about the phone but they still couldn’t help. I then spotted one of the baggage handlers and I asked him. He immediately phoned the desk that had been closed when we arrived. I went down and a woman showed me an enveolpe with my phone. »
« I got quite emotional and nearly cried, » she said.
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