Theairline industryhas rejectedradio frequency identification (RFID)technology as a universal solution to tackle lost
baggage.
Industry body IATA has said that RFID will not be rolled out as
an industry-wide solution to address the problem of lost bags,
after trials showed that RFID would only prevent 20% of the annual
lost-bag total.
About 2% of the 2.25 billion pieces of checked luggage a year
are lost on route, according to industry figures.
Earlier this year, The annual SITA Baggage Report, backed by
industry body IATA, estimated that the industry could save about
£350m a year in lost baggage costs if it adopted RFID technology
across the board.
Francesco Violante, SITA chief executive, said at the time of
the report, "It is important that we continue to move towards a
comprehensive, fully integrated global baggage-management system,
that can direct, track and trace passenger baggage throughout the
entire journey from check-in to final delivery at the
destination.
"
RFID has a role to play and could save the industry as much as
£350m a year if it was fully implemented across the industry."
But Giovanni Bisignani, director general of IATA, told this
week's annual SITA Air Transport IT Summit in Brussels, "The
industry spends £1.9bn a year dealing with lost bags, but RFID
would only solve 20% of these problems.
"IATA is not writing off RFID, but it is not suitable as a
universal solution to the problem."
Bisignani said there would be an eventual take-up of RFID
systems in the industry, as the next generation of planes, for
instance, would be fitted out with RFID systems to help load and
track bags.
BA CIO Paul Coby, who is also chairman of SITA, said, "RFID is
not seen as a widespread industry solution for baggage tracking, it
is more useful for other areas, like maintenance." BA itself has
started to use RFID to help track bags.