RFID takes off at U.S. airports

Nov 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Merrill Douglas

Airline industry hopes to slash costs associated with missing luggage

According to the International Air Transport Association, or IATA, bar-code scanners used in baggage-handling systems capture data accurately only 80% to 90% of the time. If the coded baggage tag gets crumpled, torn or turned away from the scanner — or if something interrupts the optical beam — the read fails. Then the bag gets diverted to a manual sorting station where a human operator determines where it should be sent.

Manual handling costs the airlines money. So does time spent searching for misplaced luggage and returning it to its rightful owner.

That's why airports and airlines have set their sights on radio frequency identification (RFID) systems to boost data capture accuracy to anywhere from 95% to 99%, with full implementation of the technology saving the airline industry $760 million per year, according to the IATA.

Several U.S. airports already are field testing RFID. This summer, for example, San Francisco International Airport agreed to work on a six-month trial of the technology with Asiana Airlines and Korean Air.

“We hope to start the first quarter of next year,” said Gerry Alley, the airport's manager of common-use systems. Plans call for using RFID-embedded baggage tags, which are then read immediately upon issue in order to validate the code, he said. Readers installed along the baggage conveyors will continue to read the tags to track each bag's progress.

The system will use bar code technology as well. “Even if we were completely RFID-capable at our airport, we still handle a very large number of bags that are tagged at other airports and make transfers here,” Alley said. For the test, “We hope to use a very sophisticated device that is actually a combination of RFID antennas and the latest-technology laser reader all in one enclosure.”

The airport is in negotiations with a lead technology vendor and several possible partners, which Alley declined to name. These vendors have offered to install and maintain the equipment at their own expense so they can demonstrate its capabilities, he said.