Q: Air Drop - mission impossible

Are your devices on the same WiFi network and signed onto with the same Apple ID?

Tap the icon with an arrow coming out of the box after you have selected a picture. Then tap Airdrop and if your MBP is in range it should show up as an icon on the phone. Once oh tap that the image appears in preview on the MBP via a notification. I do these steps many times when I use the Mac to answer questions on this forum

by the way swipe up from below and invoke control center. Please make sure Airdrop is not turned off.

Does your iPhone show up as a device on iTunes on your Mac?

This is a hunch - on the summary page of iTunes - if you scroll down there is an option to sync the iPhone to the Mac via WiFi - is that checked and can you actually do it?

No - I meant now that the option is checked is your phone being detected by your MBP with iTunes running or in Bluetooth preferences?

Use AirDrop to send content from your Mac - Apple Support

That is where the problem may lie - as you pointed out - it is simply not seeing your phone either way  - you may want to bring it in to a Genius bar