New Horizons of RFID and Barcode Integration in the Air Industry

Moscow, Russia, December 02, 2015 --(PR.com)-- IATA, along with Longest Chance company, held a conference on 26th of November, 2015 at the International Airport Sheremetyevo (SVO) in Moscow, Russia. The conference was dedicated to the results of pilot project jointly involved the Aeroflot airline and its flights from the Sheremetyevo to the airports of Prague, Bologna, Tallinn. The key speaker was Mr. Andrew Price, Director of Airport Operations, IATA. Other speakers included top managers of Longest Chance, Aeroflot, and Sheremetyevo.

The conference participants summarized the results of this pilot project for Hand-to-Hand RFID Baggage Tracking System developed by Longest Chance for the Aeroflot airlines and some of its flights and demonstrated for the first time the tracking of baggage movements since its check-in or drop-off at Sheremetyevo until baggage claim at Prague, Bologna, and Tallinn.

The main goal of this pilot project is the demonstration of new capabilities of the Hand-to-Hand RFID Baggage Tracking System (HHRBTS) for improving the quality and read rates in the baggage handling operations, as well as new opportunities for airlines in providing reliable control over a passage of all checked in baggage through the security zones at airports.

Active IATA involvement shows the significance of this pilot project, RFID technologies and capabilities opened up by this HHRBTS system for airlines, since airlines are those to suffer most the financial loss due to lost or mishandled baggage. What’s more, at some airlines and countries, their location, the level of compensation for mishandled baggage, could be quite different – from minor repayments to unlimited sums.

In order to improve the situation with mishandled baggage, IATA made decision to issue the Resolution 753 which is mandatory to follow and is effective since June 2018.

“IATA Resolution 753 defines the minimum required set of data on a baggage required to collect and store by any airline to minimize the number of lost or mishandled baggage. This conference allowed us to fully appreciate the volumes of works fulfilled during this pilot project and evaluate the results achieved. All parties involved in this project – system developers and air industry’s representatives – noted the efficiency of the Hand-to-Hand RFID Baggage Tracking System and excellent opportunities in its further application and use,” said Andrew Price, Director of Airport Operations, IATA.

The important benefit of using RFID technologies instead traditional barcodes is now the improvement of quality and transparency of baggage operations, additional control from airlines over the baggage movement through the security checks in airports, improvement of passenger trust in timely baggage delivery along with the passenger, as well as new services to clients.

As noted by Sergey Tsybouk, General Manager, Longest Chance: “During this pilot project, our Hand-to-Hand RFID Baggage Tracking showed exclusively high level of bag tag readability 99,99%. This lets airlines and baggage handlers to reliably control all baggage movements inside and outside airport and terminal baggage handling system as well as between any number of airports (inter-airport deliveries). The system is very flexible, easy to install and integrate with other IT systems, and fully automated.”

The Hand-to-Hand RFID Baggage Tracking System (HHRBTS) is developed by the Longest Chance company in close cooperation with IATA according to existing standards. This provides airlines with full compliance with the requirements of IATA Resolution 753 effective since June 2018.