You painstakingly pack for a trip only to arrive at your destination and realize your suitcase is nowhere to be found. It can be the stuff of nightmares.
Now
SITA
and
Lufthansa
have teamed up to alleviate this stress by automating bag “re-flight” operations, the process of reuniting luggage with its owner. SITA’s WorldTracer Auto Reflight solution saves time by reflighting misplaced bags digitally.
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When passengers land at an airport, SITA’s WorldTracer Auto Reflight notifies them of any luggage delays and gathers delivery details. It informs the baggage system of new routing for the errant bag, allowing passengers to bypass the baggage hall.
“Our aim is to make sure that when a bag is mishandled, it is reunited with its owner as soon and simply as possible,” says Sergio Colella, SITA president for Europe. SITA is an IT provider for the air transport industry with offices around the world.
The companies say baggage mishandling is not only an inconvenience for travelers but a “major pain point for the industry,” costing it $2.2 billion in 2022. The companies’ goal is to reduce mishandled baggage costs and improve the passenger experience.
SITA estimates that widespread automation of reflighting baggage could save the industry $30 million a year in costs associated with mishandled baggage.
“Based on the first results of our proof of concept, we believe [we can] automatically reflight as much as 70% of Lufthansa’s mishandled bags at Munich Airport,” says Viktoria Rudo, senior manager for Lufthansa Group.
Rudo says she sees “high potential for other SITA airline customers by digitalizing what was previously a totally manual process.”
WorldTracer Auto Reflight builds on previous solutions to “optimize Lufthansa’s baggage management services,” including WorldTracer Desktop and WorldTracer Passenger Self Services.
SITA also recently
partnered with travel identity company Zamna Technologies
to automate travelers’ journeys through airports and across international borders.