SILENT REVOLUTION

Automated baggage handling is delivering real benefits to airlines, airport operators and passengers alike.

- ATUL CHANDRA reports

For any frequent air traveller, there is always a sense of anxiety when his or her bags from the aircraft are late to arrive on the baggage belt.

Just like the scenes from many movies, the thought arises, “What if my bags didn’t make it to the destination?”. Thankfully, airports and airlines have made tremendous strides in baggage handling despite burgeoning air travel numbers, which has resulted in lower mishandling rates, faster throughput and higher passenger satisfaction. One of the key reasons for this is the increased use of automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) routing engines, RFID/IoT tracking, which have delivered measurable improvements in baggage handling.

As per SITA’s Baggage IT Insights 2025 report released in June this year, 2024 was a record-breaking year for air travel, with global passenger numbers reaching 5.3 billion, the highest in aviation history, yet the rate of mishandled baggage continued to decline; baggage mishandling still costs the industry an estimated $5 billion in 2024, with costs associated with courier returns and customer service to claims handling and lost productivity. “We're making progress, but baggage still causes stress,” said Nicole Hogg, Director of Baggage at SITA. “Passengers want reassurance. The future of baggage is rapidly evolving with automation, computer vision, and mobile tools; we're making the experience much more reliable.”

An important industry initiative is the new Modern Baggage Messaging (MBM) standard, which was approved early this year by the air transport industry. Designed to enhance data quality, the MBM Version 2 is expected to reduce mishandling by another 5 per cent.

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