How to reduce transfer baggage mishandling
About half of all baggage mishandling occurs during transfers. BIP (the Baggage Improvement Programme) has solutions that reduce missed connections.
Transfer bags
come in three flavours – dead, hot and cold. Dead bags are those that have missed their flight entirely – perhaps due to air traffic control or some other delay. These bags need to be processed after the passenger has been re-booked, so they need to go to the back of the queue for injecting into the transfer system.
Hot bags are those with MCT (minimum connecting time) or near MCT for processing. These bags might make their flights, or they might miss them if there is a delay in getting them into the baggage system. One solution used in many places is to have a separate hot bag processing facility that allows for the very fast re-screening and sortation of a small number of bags. In a large airport you may find two such areas at either end of the terminal building so that drivers can drop bags at the point closest to the aircraft, further reducing processing times.
Cold bags are those that have plenty of time. But that doesn’t mean they should be ignored. These bags should be put into the system and processed so that they can continue on their journey. Never let them turn into hot bags simply because somebody put them to one side whilst they did something else.
All of these baggage types rely upon inbound bags being segregated according to whether they are dead, hot and cold at the next station. This involves building containers that are marked hot or cold, and knowing what is in each container. That’s where a good reconciliation (or at least a good tracking system) pays dividends. Loading hot bags last, so they come off the aircraft first, is also essential.
These are a few of over 60 BIP solutions that aim to cut mishandling in half by 2012. During diagnosis visits in 2008, these BIP solutions addressed over 90% of mishandling.
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