San Francisco, Jul 31 (IANS): An Apple AirTag has helped a cyclist in the US to track his bicycle after an airline had lost it.

Barry Sherry was travelling from his home in Virginia to Europe for the "cycling trip of a lifetime", reports CNN.

He intended to spend a week riding in the Swiss Alps, then another week with a cycling group in Luxembourg, followed by a third week in Finland.

According to Sherry, it was to be his last cycling trip to Europe.

“I’m 68-- I’m getting old,” he said.

“I keep doing these epic bike trips [abroad] and with each one I think it’s probably the last I’m going to do. Those beautiful climbs in Switzerland that I love so much, those may be in my past and not my future anymore -- but I wanted one more trip to Switzerland.”

He booked a ticket with American Airlines -- codeshare flights on British Airways planes, from Washington D.C. to London, and then London to Zurich -- and packed up his bike for the trip and also put an AirTag inside it.

"While his suitcase arrived on the carousel, his bike -- zipped up in its carrie r-- had become one of the 7.6 out of every 1,000 items of luggage to be, as the industry coyly terms it, 'mishandled', in other words: lost," the report said.

At first, he was not worried.

“I’ve travelled into Zurich three times with my bike, and one time it was at the oversized luggage area, another time it didn’t come out, but I went over to the corner and there was an employee who had my bike,” he said.

“So my first thought was, It must be in the airport, I just have to find the right door. But I was looking around, didn’t see anything and opened the app.”

The 'Find My' app--, which traces Apple devices including AirTags--, showed the bike at London's Heathrow Airport.

Sherry reported it to the lost baggage desk, and even showed the app.

“I said, ‘Look, I can tell you where it is’. She looked and said ‘Oh!’ I can’t believe that it was the first time someone was using the Find My app, but she seemed surprised that I could show her where it was in real time," he said.

Although the staff member was unable to log the location of the bike, she noted that the majority of lost luggage is found within 24 hours.

After a few days of waiting, and constantly tweeting the location of his bicycle, an email from British Airways confirmed it was being delivered to him.

Sherry said that using AirTag was helpful as “It helped being able to see every few hours that it was last seen a few minutes ago, and I think American Airlines or maybe the Heathrow Twitter team got it moving”. I

f not, he said, “I might still be waiting-- although I’d probably have face time with real people in D.C. to recover it."