By Julian Goldsmith, 18 April 2008 10:00
NEWS
As Heathrow Terminal Five (T5) recovers from go-live glitches in its baggage handling systems, air travel IT specialist Sita has released research showing 42.4 million bags are lost in airports across the world.
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According to the fourth annual Sita Baggage Report, RFID is a key technology for solving baggage handling headaches, estimated to be costing the global air travel industry $3.8bn a year. It said RFID bag tagging could make the industry a saving of $700m a year.
Sita CEO Fransesco Volante said in a statement: "It is important that we continue to move towards a comprehensive, fully integrated global baggage management system that can direct, track and trace passenger baggage throughout the entire journey."
Baggage mishandling was the largest cause of delay in reuniting passengers with their luggage (49 per cent of cases). Historically, this is an improvement, down from 61 per cent of cases in 2005.
However, a spokesman for British Airways, the major stakeholder in T5, cast doubt on the efficacy of RFID tagging as a solution to baggage handling problems at the present time.
He said: "RFID hasn't been trialled on any systems large enough to equate with baggage handling on a global scale. Barcoding is being used and it works. At T5, the problem wasn't with the luggage tags. BA will watch with interest the development of RFID but for the moment we will continue to use barcodes on our baggage tags, which - with a modern system - is very effective for baggage being checked-in at an airport."
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
do the numbers add up?
$3.8BN losses per year and SITA's RFID will save $700M . am I missing something or does that not look like a good return on investment?
2. Haydn Rees
The best travel advice I ever got was;
"Unless you have no alternative; don't travel with more than carry-on luggage."
3. Simon Allen
For several years the airlines have been saying that they do not want to pay the extra costs of RFID.
Now they want RFID???? T5 could have had it built in - but does it?
Makes me remember when credit/debit card authorisation started in the UK in 1983. Everyone could see the benefits but no one wanted to pay. The banks, the card companies and the retailers had been arguing for several years as to who should pay. Now it's standard practice and everyone benefits.
We never learn.
4. Radical Meldrew
Modern business plans seem to have abandoned any pretence that the consumer is still important to them.
This boast of potential money saving measures reducing the amount they lose through incompetence is a typical example of this attitude.
Surely their primary focus should on improving existing facilities to benefit their paying customers first and then look for the enhancements later?