Lost iPhone, phone is in airplane mode.

If you switch to a new phone and the phone is still in lost mode, you won't lose the connection to your old phone. If you erase it completely you can lose the connection. If I where you I would call the taxi company to ask if they have found your phone

I have activated the lost mode and left a message but who knows when it will be found and taken off the airplane mode.

No one will be able to remove the phone from AirPlane Mode unless they know your passcode for the phone. The chances that someone could correctly guess your passcode in less than 10 tries are in the billions to one.

Should I erase the phone?

Yes, but this cannot occur until the phone comes back online with a connection to the Internet.

Or as per Apple, whenever the phone comes online, it will go into lost mode and the message will play.

We have already tried to explain that someone would need to correctly guess your passcode in order for them to get into the settings on the phone to turn AirPlane Mode off.

I'm sorry, but this is not going to happen.

If I switch to a new phone, will I lose the connection to the old phone?

You don't have a connection to the old phone, and you won't unless the old phone comes back online....which it is not going to do.

The unfortunate bottom line here is that users cannot access their phone remotely if their phone does not have a connection to the Internet where it is currently located.

shah2024um wrote:

Just as fyi- if you swipe down on the main screen, as if you turn on the flashlight, you can take it off the airplane mode without logging in.

That is, if the user has enabled that option in: Settings > Face ID & Passcode, under the: “Allow Access When Locked” section.

Thank you. Had a recent issue where I left my phone in a taxi and the driver had switched on Airplane Mode by swiping down.

Seems he had a change of heart and returned the phone but I also could not track it due to it being on Airplane Mode.

Have change the settings now as you have described. Thank you.