What’s the one thing that really ruins the first few hours (sometimes every first day) of a holiday?
An airline losing your luggage.
Just off the plane with that ‘can’t wait to get to my hotel’ enthusiasm you find your carousel and eagerly await for your carefully labelled bag. One by one they start to make their way around the rotating device and to the hands of their owners.
You fidget with your fingers, approach potentially familiar bags, but after a good 20 minutes, when there are no suitcases left and the carousel comes to a halt, it hits you.
Star Alliance is hoping to reduce the number of missing bags by investing in new tech that will “significantly” reduce the number of baggage issues and provide faster information for affected guests.
The Alliance IT hub for baggage is scheduled to go into operation by the end of the year and is the latest in a series of ‘plug and play’ applications at the alliance.
According to the group, baggage processes are currently complicated by the various systems their members currently use, which makes it highly complex to retrieve the current status of bags, to locate bags within the systems and to take effective remedial action if bags are mishandled.
Star Alliance CEO, Mark Schwab, said while mishandling a bag “is a relatively rare case” in the network, “when things do go wrong it is highly annoying to any customer affected”.
He said modern technology will be “of tremendous assistance” in reducing baggage issues and provide faster, accurate information.
“As ever, our ultimate goal is to provide the best possible service to our travellers.”
Mark Schwab, Star Alliance CEO
At the same time, the Chief Executives endorsed the development of standardised processes for off-airport/self-service check-in, for fast bag drop technology at airports, for baggage self-tagging and for automated travel document validation.
Once implemented, these standards will not only provide smoother service to the Alliance’s customers but also reduce infrastructure requirements and handling costs at all of the 1,300 airports the Alliance is serving today.
