Technology that can prevent your luggage from being lost during air travel

Technology that can prevent your luggage from being lost during air travel

Jenny Lucas is looking at photos from her 40th birthday party in Greece, and most of the clothes and jewelry she wore in those photos have now been lost.

They had a wonderful holiday in Greece but the happiness was short-lived as their luggage went missing when they checked in on the flight back to London.

"I had a great time, but the return was very sad," she says. When I look at these pictures, I see many things (clothes, jewellery) that were in the bags and were lost along with them.

About two months after his flight back to London, the airline EasyJet confirmed that his luggage was permanently lost. An EasyJet spokesperson told the BBC: 'We are very sorry that Lucas' bag has gone missing, and we understand the frustration this has caused.'

As you can tell from headlines and social media posts around the world in recent months, Lucas's case is not unique, with some commentators calling this summer the 'summer of lost luggage'.

Airport security staff, who have to scan all check-in luggage, and ground handling companies, who usually carry all those suitcases and bags onto and off planes, are responsible for this situation. , has been held.

It may be recalled that many employees of security personnel and ground handling companies were laid off during the Corona pandemic as it was a time when many countries closed their airspaces and flights from one country to another. It was negligible.

But now that air travel has fully recovered, the airport is facing a severe shortage of baggage security and delivery personnel and airports are unable to cope with the surge in passengers. As a result, photos of hundreds of missing suitcases in warehouses at airports are emerging.

Mapfre, a Spanish insurance company, says that the number of passengers reporting lost luggage this summer was 30 percent higher than in 2019. Remember that 2019 was the last year of normal travel before the pandemic.

Although there is no global estimate of the volume of delayed or lost luggage this year yet, the 2019 figures show that the problem has always been there.

According to bag management software company Sita, 1.9 million bags and suitcases were received late that year and 13 million were never received.

Add to that 5.6 items out of every 1,000 passengers that were damaged or stolen.

An increasing number of travelers are turning to technology to keep track of what's in their luggage. In particular, they are attaching GPS trackers to their equipment, one of which is Apple's AirTag.

With the help of the Apple Air Tag, you can see where your lost suitcase is in the world through your smartphone or computer. Last month, a man who traveled from California to Scotland for a wedding saw his luggage go to Toronto, Canada and then Detroit, USA.

Lucas says she hasn't used GPS tags before but will definitely do so in the future. 'I will do anything to prevent my belongings from being lost again.'

While such tagging devices can give travelers peace of mind, travel industry expert Eric Leopold says they're not a solution to the underlying problem, eliminating problems that cause luggage to not make it onto the flight it's supposed to. But their owner rides.

"Bag tracking is helpful when 99 percent of the time it arrives on time and one percent is mishandled, but when thousands of bags arrive in London or elsewhere," says Leopold, founder of air travel consultancy 3Dot. If the tags get stuck in place, they won't help get the stack of bags to the destination.

SeeTrue is a company that hopes to help airports and airlines transport cargo. An Israeli firm makes software that can perform security scans on check-in luggage faster than human security staff.

"C-True uses artificial intelligence and computer vision algorithms to detect contraband in bags," says chief executive Asaf Frankel. It combines with current X-ray and CT scanners to detect faster and more accurately than most human eyes. It is always working and never gets tired or distracted.

As a result, the goods reach the ships on time and nothing is missed.

UK technology firm AirPorter has a solution to this problem by changing the way passengers queue at the airport to check their luggage before their flight.

Instead, passengers can arrange for their luggage to be picked up from their homes using its app and website.

Currently available on British Airways and Swiss International Airlines flights between London and Geneva, an airport worker will collect a passenger's suitcase from home. After which the baggage is made to the departure lounge rather than the trim will take you to the departure area in the Yenel Building.

Likewise, one of the airport's transportation partners will pick up the suitcase and deliver it to the passenger's home or destination address.

Fees for a bag of luggage start at around forty pounds, one way, if you don't mind your suitcase being picked up the day before your departure, but prices can go up to double that. May be higher if you want your items to be collected by a certain time of day. The further you get from the airport, the higher the cost.

Although bags and passengers travel on the same plane, this will obviously mean an extra car or van to get to the airport.

Randall Darby, AirPorter's chief executive, founded the firm in 2013, saying he was frustrated that cargo was traveling the way it had been in commercial aviation for nearly a century.

They plan to expand the service worldwide and hope that it will not only be limited to business travelers but will become a beneficial service for all types of vacationers.

Yet despite such technological solutions, passengers also want airlines to employ more customer care workers.

Bill Dowdy, a British expat living in the French city of Toulouse, was one such person when German Airlines lost his family's four suitcases for nearly a month en route to New York via Frankfurt.

I called the airline repeatedly but most of the numbers were closed. they say. "Lufthansa Airlines made it memorable for all the wrong reasons."

"It turned out we were washing our underwear in the hotel sink," says Doody. He has since traveled to Australia for work with GPS trackers on every item of luggage.

A Lufthansa Airline spokesperson said, "We cannot investigate and comment on specific cases of missing luggage."

Meanwhile, in London, Lucas is now trying to get compensation. I have lost all my belongings. Such jewels are lost that cannot be compensated. I have lost £1,500 and £2,000 worth of goods. EasyJet is asking for receipts, but I don't have receipts for everything.'