Thursday, August 31, 2006

Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco, but what about his baggage?

According to an article in RFID Journal today, the San Francisco airport has approved an RFID-based baggage tracking pilot program in collaboration with Asiana Airlines, Korean Air and Incheon International Airport to improve baggage handling.

By attaching RFID tags to checked luggage for sorting and tracking, these airlines and airports are hoping to improve on the barcode-based technology used today. Since RFID does not require line-of-sight, it captures information more reliably. According to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), RFID has increased the read rates by more than 90%.

Intellareturn Take: Utilizing the benefits of RFID in day-to-day activities is an important step for realizing the potential of this technology. Baggage handling for travelers is often a tedious process with a significant failure rate.

In fact, the Aviation Consumer Protection Division estimates that 3.6 million pieces of luggage were lost by airlines domestically last year. While the process is extremely manual and will always be, this is a positive step for improving what has left travelers around the world searching for their lost belongings. What's the real reason to do this?

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) believes that RFID can improve baggage-handling accuracy and save airlines and airports $760 million a year if implemented worldwide. With the state of the airlines in severe distress, an extra $760 million each year could be the savior that industry professionals have been looking for.