3 New Ways Airports Are Using Technology to Better Track Luggage
Skift Take
Once airports and airlines get better at not losing your bags, maybe they'll give incentives to keep bags out of overcrowded overhead bins.
Airports are investing in technological innovations and systems improvements to ensure that fewer bags are mishandled or lost.
Airport information and technology company SITA recently announced that while passenger numbers have increased by 65.6% in the last decade, reports of mishandled bags have been cut in half. While that is a great improvement overall, it is still cold comfort for anyone at arrivals stuck at the airline's baggage desk reporting a problem.
According to the same SITA report, 81.2% of mishandled bags were delayed, 15.5% were damaged or pilfered, and 3.3% were either lost or stolen.
Of the seven reasons SITA listed for why your bags may be delayed, transfer mishandling is number one at 45%. Failure to load comes in second at 16%. Ticketing errors, bag switch, security holds, and other factors account for 15% of all delayed bags worldwide.
Visitors at the Passenger Terminal Expo in Barcelona last week were treated to a peek of the best solutions entering the market to keep these mishandled bag numbers low, and ensure they keep getting smaller.
We've ranked the top three according to their direct relation to existing baggage handling issues which most contribute to those 6.96 per thousand passenger bags which were mishandled in 2013.
3. Bag Journey Applications
Self-service drop-off
