The Baggage Guru’s Perspective
Baggage has been my life. I started loading luggage in Boeing 707s at Logan Airport in Boston in 1972, was a lost and found agent for Air France there in 1974 before joining Eastern Air Lines. By 1988 I was head of baggage operations for the airline at Headquarters in Miami before being recruited to manage baggage for the airline industry at IATA in Geneva. After 9/11 I went to Washington for a year as part of the Roll-Out Team responsible for standing-up the TSA. In 2003 I created the global TSA Lock standard managed by Travel Sentry now used in over 80 countries to improved baggage security and safety.
WHY THE CURRENT AIRLINE BAGGAGE PROCESS IS OUT OF DATE
There are multiple reasons why it is overdue to change the way bags are tagged and tracked.
- The 10 digit License Plate Number (LPN) or baggage tag number was created in a time there were 1 billion passengers a year. Today there are closer to 5 billion. This means that for a major airline those six random digits that are part of the LPN can be duplicated in hours.
- Barcode readers made it possible to automatically sort bags for the first time. But barcodes are inherently difficult to read on baggage tag is moving on a conveyor belt. The read rate, the percent of tags correctly read, varies but is rarely close to 100%. This means bags are delayed and must be manually processed – time, manpower, and some bags miss their flights.
- IATA Resolution 753 was adopted in 2016, came into force in 2018 with a two-year implantation window. It requires airlines to track baggage at check-in, loading, transfer and delivery. RFID is a far more efficient way to capture this data than barcode
WHAT IS THE INDUSTRY DOING ABOUT THIS?
Airlines and airports continuje to patch-up and keep alive the outdated LPN barcode baggage tag. I call this “minimising the pain”. Early barcode readers had 360-degree arrays of laser scanners and read rates sometimes less than 90%. Vendors now propose optical readers that can error correct an incomplete barcode scan or damaged tag. Another method is “baggage biometrics” which captures multiple images of a bag at check-in and can use that image, linked to the LPN and BSM – Baggage Source Message to know the flight and destination information.
There is still not solution to the outdated LPN 10-digit bag tag number.
WHAT CAN REPLACE BARCODE?
RFID baggage tags are the clear winner. The read rate in practice today is 99.95%. That IATA Annual General Meeting (AGM) in 2019 adopted a Resolution to accelerate adoption of RFID for baggage to improve tracking. With COVID starting less than a year later the implementation of this Resolution stalled for several years and is still stalled.
The first operational deployment of RFID baggage tags was at Hong Kong International Airport in 2005. RFID inlays (basically stickers on the back of traditional barcode tags) were issued at check-in and read and used throughout the baggage system. The first airline to deploy RFID for baggage was Delta Airlines in 2016 across its entire network with great success.
THE FUTURE?
Rather than continue to “minimise the pain” by patching up an outdated system the industry would be better served by “maximising the joy” for passengers.
IATA’s own survey data shows the top pain points for passengers are baggage check-in and baggage claim at the other end. Apart from flight delays, the common stressors are airport queues, baggage anxiety and a lack of real-time information and transparency.
Is there a way to resolve the uncertainty, the loss of control and the inefficiency of waiting in queues? Yes!
PBT – Permanent Bag Tag is the answer. All the advantages of the RFID tags today and much more.
Benefits of PBT:
- One bag tag for life – hangtags today – integrated into luggage tomorrow
- No battery, rugged and not expensive
- Possible to check-in baggage anytime online anywhere
- Fast baggage drop-off. Average 30 seconds versus 3 minutes for a paper tag
- Automated tracking start to finish
- Free registration to receive notifications in case a bag goes missing
- Environment – each year there are enough single use tags produced to wrap around the equator 60 times. Since their introduction that is over 60 trips to the moon and back
- Health – due to their thermal coating barcode baggage tags have bisphenols (BPA) which are toxic to human systems
As a passenger, would you appreciate being able to drop a bag off fast without hassling with a kiosk and a paper barcode tag? Would knowing where your bag is always be less stressful? Would knowing that your bag is linked to you in case something goes wrong reduce uncertainty? This is what I mean by “maximising the joy”. This is why the airline industry needs to finally give baggage the attention they have given to other elements of their service package.
We have electronic tickets, boarding passes too. Why are we stuck with a 40-year-old system for baggage? Isn’t it time to bring joy to the least joyful part of airline travel?
