In a pathbreaking decision which is aimed at solving the problem of lost and delayed check-in baggage of passengers on its flights, Delta Airlines will be investing $50 million to improve its baggage handling and management systems. The pivot of this new system revolves around the radio-frequency based identification chips (RFIDs) which is a far departure from using the conventional bar-code scanning based bag tags. This system is currently used successfully in warehouse management and Delta will be the first airline to experiment its usage in airline industry.

Delays in baggage arrivals and their loss are two of the highly unsatisfactory customer experiences with the airlines. On most of the American airlines, checked-in baggage allowances are not free. The airlines charge fees (generally $25 a piece) for each check-in baggage. Customers certainly do not like baggage delays or loss even after paying for their bags. Airlines have been grappling with this issue since long and have devised many ways and means to ensure that baggage handling and management is perfect. However, still there are operational issues which lead to losses and delays.

How will the system work?

An RFID will replace the conventional bag tag. This RFID will be assigned to a particular bag and to a particular flight. Delta will have 1500 special bag loaders developed for 84 of its largest passenger traffic airports. These loaders will have inbuilt RFID readers which will detect any such bag which is not meant for that particular flight. This will stop the belt movement till corrective action is taken.
This will also lead to replacement of the hand-held scanner which become inconvenient to use when the bags have to lifted up or down as well at same time leading to delays. With inbuilt RFIDs, there will be no need for hand-held scanners and the ramp workers will be able to perform their tasks faster.
These will help in fast detection of misplaced or lost baggage. The passengers will be able to use the Delta Airlines mobile application for tracking their check-in baggage. They will get push notifications about the same at each leg of the journey. So, if a particular bag is not able to make it to the flights, the owner is notified instantly. The owner is not kept waiting for baggage till the end to find that it is not there and then beginning a series of enquiries and complaints.

The Rationale

Delta Airlines has a very good track record of on-time arrival of baggage as compared with other major airlines of USA. Only 1 out of 500 checked-in bags does not arrive on-time. There could be many genuine reasons for this, such as connecting flights with less time intervals, re-routing of flights due to improper weather conditions and many others. Even if the airline is able to save 10 percent of baggage delays, it would mean a lot since the cost of delivering it to the customer could be saved. By one estimate, this could lead to savings of costs incurred on delivering for 25000 bags.