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LESS DELAYS: Passengers want systems that provide a quick service.

With baggage handling mishaps rising across the world, aviation authorities are struggling to combat the problem.

Losing luggage is an expensive mistake, as Heathrow Airport officials recently found. In April, thousands of bags went missing following a baggage system malfunction at the hub's new Terminal 5. Meanwhile, hundreds of passengers were stranded as British Airways, which operates exclusively from T5, cancelled several flights.

The setback was a costly affair, with BA losing millions of dollars and delaying plans to move all long-haul flights to the terminal. Since the incident, efficiency levels have improved with the baggage system operating more effectively.

But T5 isn't the only terminal to experience operational faults. Indeed, IT services provider SITA says luggage handling system malfunctions at global hubs have increased in recent years.

"In Europe in 2004 there were about 13.7 mishandled bags in every thousand," says Jihad Boueri, SITA's regional director for the Middle East and Turkey. "By 2007 it grew by about 21% to 16.6 per thousand."

The company's management has studied the problem to discover the general causes behind baggage system failures. Its research included monitoring and reporting, trend analysis and equipment and system examination. "We could find many reasons behind the increase," Boueri says.

"Sometimes bags were not loaded properly or there were ticketing errors, arrival station mishandling, loading or off-loading mistakes; there were lots of human intervention errors in most of these areas. Sometimes there would be a delay in customs, security checking or tagging."

Though passengers usually receive lost luggage within 48 hours, SITA's management insist such delays are unacceptable. The IT company is working with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which recently launched a baggage improvement programme (BIP), to address the issue.

The BIP focuses on five areas of improvement, according to Boueri. "Firstly we need to optimise information sent between the central control and baggage system and secondly we need to focus on training. The third thing is about messaging, ensuring bags get to the right place, and the fourth is the read rate of the bar code. The fifth thing is about increasing passenger awareness."

Overloaded baggage systems are a big problem, with airport authorities keen to make improvements. One alternative is the remote baggage check-in, where passengers departing from congested airports can drop their luggage at hotels and conference centres for transfer.

"This system would mean they would come to the airport without their baggage," Boueri says. "But a lot of things need to be worked out to ensure this would actually work properly."

For passengers using airport self check-in services, bag drop counters are available for quick and easy departure. At present, each airline has a separate bag drop area but Boueri says a common use counter will be available in the near future to speed up the check-in process.

According to SITA, the company's baggage management system offers airports a comprehensive scheme comprising three components, the bagmessage, bag manager and world tracer. Bag message, which delivers information about luggage while it travels through an airport, operates in more than 100 hubs worldwide.

"When you check-in baggage it will send a message saying you've checked in on this particular flight with a certain amount of luggage," Boueri says.

"This message is then sent to the server and distributed to the airports. "Any system that needs to find out the status of the bag, for example security, can do so using this. In 2007 there were around 750 million messages exchanged between departure control systems and automated baggage control."

The bag manager, or reconciliation system, is implemented in 50 airports including Abu Dhabi, Muscat and Kuwait.

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