Originally Posted by 13901

Fact is, there's already plenty enough information based on extremely reliable technology. Every bag passing through LHR gets dozens of scans (which in turn generate a baggage message, a pinpoint of "I'm here") throughout their journey, and the success rate is >99.8%. And this is worldwide, BA's got 70% of their stations by volume already set up like that. No need to reinvent the wheel. What is needed is to strong-arm the SITAs of this world to agree to pool the data in a single location.

AirTags could be useful for out of gauge equipment, especially mobility aids. That's something I would agree to, no airline should ever misplace a wheelchair.



Delta is an interesting case study. Back in the early 2010s their baggage performance was beyond shocking (there's/used to be DoT data available publicly). Then they started investing massively on three things:

1. technology. They wanted ALL of their stations (mainline at least) to have Baggage Reconciliation Systems by 2018, meaning no more bingo sheets.
2. tracking. they wanted to have tracking of all of their bags in the mainline network. They selected one partner and rolled it out worldwide. Where some airports already had a BRS, they basically overlaid one on top of the other, so that a bag is "zapped" twice. Not exactly cost-effective, but it did the trick and solved the issue I was referring to earlier in terms of SITA or the like saying "this is my baggage data, I won't give it to you unless you give me X or Y"
3. ways of working. They applied the same level of care they give to passengers... to bags. In other words, if a passenger is connecting and is running late, normally the airline try to expedite their journey. The same doesn't happen for bags. They introduced short connecting bins, like BA has, but moreover they became proactive in managing their connections. If, say, you're sat in Atlanta and flight DL123 arriving from LHR is 30 min late and has 20 bags at risk of missing the connection, they'll send an extra driver to pick up those bags and rush them to their onward flights. They also have tail-to-tail transfers in the US, which the muppets in charge over here don't want to agree to.