8792 An End To Lost flight Luggage???

It seems lost luggage could be a thing of the past. There's a trial being carried out at Heathrow whereby baggage is being tagged with a special chip containing passengers' details ..... Read on

[url=http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20080213/tuk-an-end-to-lost-flight-luggage-dba1618_1.html]An end to lost flight luggage? - Yahoo! News UK[/url]

Category
Travel & Holiday Advice

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 02/13/2008 - 07:30

Now - how much would Ryanair charge for the tags?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 02/13/2008 - 23:20

Interesting to see that it's Emirates that are pioneering this for they have such a bad record for lost luggage. Understandable in a way as the majority of their passengers transit somewhere, invariably at very busy airports and possibly with short connection times, very few fly point-to-point. So it's in their interests to do something in this area, plus they have visionary management coupled with loadsa cash. Can't quite see it filtering down to Alitalia for a while though, irrespective of what happens to it.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 02/14/2008 - 02:27

We "road tested" a system like this about 10 years ago for courier shipments, It works Ok up to a point, that point being a human being.....bags fall of trucks, still have to man handled. good for advertising, but not so in action.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 02/14/2008 - 03:14

The new tag should help in tracing the lost luggage in a more efficient manner and this has always been a problem for all airlines. So I think they will all try to implement the idea.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 06:45

Trust ID chips under software control at your peril (the below is from an article in a tech website), I particularly like BA's response, very customer friendly:

[I]Heathrow's Terminal 4 was yesterday hit by a software glitch which affected its baggage-handling capacity, the knock-on effect of which means that some passengers travelling have been told to leave any hold baggage at home.

BAA's website currently offers: "The Teminal 4 baggage system is temporarily experiencing a reduction in capacity caused by a software problem. While every effort is being made to rectify the problem, you may experience some delays when departing today.

"If you are travelling through Terminal 4 today, please check with your airline before leaving for the airport and consider minimising the amount of hold luggage you check in for your journey."

Specifically, British Airways says:

The following passengers flying from London Heathrow Terminal 4 on Wednesday 20 February should not bring luggage to be checked in.
Longhaul passengers in the following cabins
· World Traveller (economy)
· World Traveller Plus (premier economy)
As well as all transfer passengers

Passengers who do bring baggage to be checked in will not be able to travel.

BAA told the BBC it had technicians working all night to fix the unspecified problem and was "hoping that everything will be sorted out soon".

BA, meanwhile, assured that "passengers due to fly from T4 are eligible for a refund, can re-book to a different destination or travel on a later date".[/I]

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 07:11

The latest is that the problem is now only affecting BA transit passengers through T4.

That is, the people arriving WITH LUGGAGE on flights from elsewhere will now be stuck at Heathrow. Nice.