Using RFID, Airline Industry Making Progress to Reduce Baggage Mishandling

As the summer travel season begins to heat up, an international organization focused on the global airline industry released a progress report on the implementation of baggage tracking.

With 85 percent of airlines now having some sort system implemented for the tracking of luggage, Monika Mejstrikova, IATA Director Ground Operations, said “travelers can have even more confidence that their bags will be at the carousel on arrival.” IATA represents 320 airlines comprising 83 percent of global air traffic.

RFID Gaining Wider Use Resolution 753 requires airlines to exchange baggage tracking messages with interline partners and their agents. The current baggage messaging infrastructure depends on legacy technologies using costly Type B messaging, according to IATA officials.

This high cost is adversely affecting the implementation of the resolution and contributes to issues with message quality, leading to an increase in baggage mishandling.

Currently, optical barcode scanning is the dominant tracking technology implemented by the majority of airports surveyed, used at 73 percent of facilities.

Tracking using RFID, which is more efficient, is implemented in 27 percent of surveyed airports. Notably, RFID technology has seen higher adoption rates at mega airports, with 54 percent already implementing this advanced tracking system.