Air travellers from Thiruvanathapuram, Kozikode, Mangalore, Tirupati, Madurai, Tiruchi and seven other airports will soon be able to fly without worrying about misplacing their baggage.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has expanded its agreement with SITA to have BagManager, a high-tech baggage management solution, at these airports. It will provide airports with real-time status of passengers’ bags, thereby reducing the instances of misplaced baggage.
The global airline industry annually processes 4.5 billion pieces of luggage and in 2016, 21.6 million bags were misplaced. With the average cost for the industry at about $100 per lost bag, the implementation of this system in the 13 airports will help them improve their bag handling record.
“The implementation of BagManager will take place in a staggered manner. But by the middle of the year all the 13 airports will have it,” Maneesh Jaikrishna, SITA, Vice-President, Indian Sub-Continent, Eastern and Southern Africa, said. The 13 airports where AAI plans to implement the BagManager programme handled 45 million passengers in 2017, a number which is expected to grow as the domestic aviation industry has been seeing double-digit month-to-month growth for several months now. The introduction of this system will benefit the growing number of air travellers.
In 2015, AAI had implemented BagManager at Kolkata and Chennai airports.
The implementation of this baggage solution will also help AAI track airlines’ progress in complying with IATA Resolution 753 by tracking bags across key points during the journey. The Resolution comes into effect from June.
The Resolution was published in 2013 when it was unanimously accepted by all IATA members at the joint Passenger Services Resolution conference.
(This writer is in Jaipur at the invitation of SITA)