Over the last decade, the introduction of cutting-edge technology has significantly improved the baggage handling success rate. Across the globe, airports are investing heavily in modern technology to reduce operational costs, improve customer experiences, and to stay competitive. Some of the most common issues passengers must  face during their travels are delays in flights, long queues at carousels, mishandling of baggage, missing baggage, etc. These amount to several billion-dollar revenue losses every year and unsatisfied travelers. Hence, it becomes imminent to make sure that baggage is handled with utmost care, and to make sure that the passenger walks out of the destination airport with all his baggage intact. Fortune Business Insights in a report, states that the global baggage handling system market size was USD 8.55 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach USD 14.79 billion by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 7.2% during the forecast period. Majority of airport authorities are investing in revamping airport infrastructure to offer better comfort and baggage handling experiences for travelers. 

One of the biggest challenges at airports is manually transporting luggage from the boarding counter to the aircraft, which is time-consuming, expensive, and labor-intensive. The automation of check-in conveyors, luggage screening, sorting and reclamation, improves efficiency, passenger experience and safety. Due to the increase in the number of passengers, airports find it difficult to process and sort thousands of luggage every day. This can only be achieved with transport systems working properly and without interruptions. For instance, in India, travelers have often complained about rough handling and mismanagement of their luggage at airports. There have been frequent episodes of misplaced luggage which the travelers never got back, or the plane took off without their bags. Airports are facing problems in handling the luggage and despite their best efforts, the luggage is getting damaged or misplaced. 

Airport baggage handling systems (BHS) are a type of system found at airports that is used to monitor luggage transfers at ticket counters. The existing baggage system has several components and multiple sub-systems from different vendors to function in tandem to make sure every baggage is handled correctly and to ensure it reaches its destination along with the passenger. For a very long time in the aviation industry, major airports and airlines have been looking for the opportunity to use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in the field of baggage handling.  RFID is one of the technologies identified as having the greatest potential to benefit society in the twenty-first century. The market for this technology is rapidly expanding, and an increasing number of businesses are utilizing this technology to improve the efficiency of their operations and gain a competitive advantage. 

Businesses need to foresee the opportunities to use AI and robotics in further optimizing the tracking of baggage and become part of the future standard in airport operations. The implementation of an end-to-end baggage handling system will not only allow airports to rise and serve travelers and enterprises better, but it will also position modern airports as leaders in the baggage handling process. We can take a quantum leap only when a symphony of humans and machines are working together, rather than looking at making small improvements to the existing baggage handling systems.

Airports should learn from modern retailers and start integrating robotics to handle passenger baggage at airports. Imagine a queue of mini robots (similar to the robotic vacuum cleaners we have at our homes today) waiting to serve every customer who is walking in. One can scan their boarding pass and load their baggage on it. Based on the information on the boarding pass it will print an RFID baggage tag on the luggage and ferry the luggage to a human check point assigned to the flight, or to the storage facility depending on the time of check-in. These robots will determine the weight and communicate with the check-in systems on the details of the baggage for every passenger. From there, with the help of the RFID tag, the luggage will be loaded to the right aircrafts. Upon arrival, the baggage can again be loaded on to the robots and delivered to the respective passengers, along with the weight details. These kind of innovations and investments towards these technologies are needed in the contemporary times to improve customer experience and reduce operating costs.

Photo by Dimitri Karastelev on Unsplash