Passenger numbers are forecast to exceed pre-pandemic levels in 2024 and total 102 percent of the 2019 figures – up from 95.5 percent in 2023. With this comes more baggage to handle, increasing the pressure on airports to favour automation over human labour – the main cause of mishandled bags.
In 2023, 36.1 million air passenger journeys were marred by a mishandled bag incident. And this number is expected to rise in 2024 as overall baggage volumes increase.
This increases the incentive for arrival airports to automate their baggage handling systems (BHS) to reduce the number of manual handling errors and elevate the passenger experience. The thought of not finding their bags at the reclaim carousel is the part of the journey that causes passengers the most stress. Fortunately, the automation used by airports with a modern BHS system, an Independent Carrier System (ICS), can reduce the mishandled inbound bag rate of the baggage that it handles to 0.001 percent.
Despite the record number of mishandled bags in 2023, there were also improvements compared to 2022. For example, the mishandled bag rate on international flights improved from 19.3 of every thousand passenger journeys to just 12.1.
Airports with ICSs are using their automation to ensure baggage spends as much of its journey in their systems as possible.
By re-entering inbound baggage into the ICS upon its arrival at the airport, the system can close the door on a potential ‘Bermuda Triangle’ just seconds away from the arrival carousel.
Until relatively recently, all inbound luggage was manually sorted by ground handling operators (this continues to be the case at 90 percent of airports), and this continues to the cause of a significant proportion of mishandled inbound baggage.
In 2023, some 46 percent of all mishandled bags were inbound baggage that never made the transfer flight, and a further 4 percent were inbound baggage that failed to make it to the reclaim carousel.
Once inbound baggage is unloaded from the aircraft, it is transported to the entry point of the designated conveyor, where it is manually sorted.
Due to human errors, arrival baggage bound for the reclaim carousel can end up as transfer baggage, and vice versa.
If the ICS is used, the baggage is entered into the baggage handling system where it is automatically scanned and matched with the tote. This means it will reach the reclaim carousel or the make-up area for the transfer flight with a 99.999 percent success rate.
On the ICS, the baggage is 100 percent traceable for as long as it is in the system, whereas baggage on conveyors is less traceable. Should it fall off a conveyor or trolley, its only means of identification is its tag – another potential human error.
It’s generally accepted in the industry that around 40 percent of reported lost baggage is nearby in the airport when the passengers report the loss, but in most cases they won’t be found before the passengers leave the airport.
If the bags had been scanned at the arrival airport, tracking and traceability would enable their discovery within minutes. If the baggage had been manually sorted, it would likely remain lost for hours, undiscovered until a manual intervention checks their tag.
Among the airports already using their ICS to sort inbound baggage are San Francisco, Oslo and Calgary.
All three use a CrisBag ICS system. Once the baggage is loaded onto CrisBag, it is put on track to the correct arrival carousel or transfer make-up area.
Each inbound bag remains in the same individually-tracked and traced tote throughout the BHS process, so it has 100 percent traceability, which guarantees compliance with IATA Resolution 753.
And so far, the airports are not reporting any capacity issues. Demand on the BHS at the departure airport tends to peak in the morning, while arrival airports tend to be at their busiest in the afternoon, so there is no need to raise the capacity.
Rather, the entry of inbound baggage into the ICS will mean the system is being utilised even more efficiently.
An airport investing in an ICS can replace all manual handling processes in their BHS with automation, thus eliminating the cause of the vast majority of mishandled bags: human error. This is particularly true with inbound baggage, which instead of being manually sorted upon its arrival can be fed directly into the ICS for automated transfer or reclaim handling.
