Industry Insight Special Report
Passengers place high value on baggage tracking
When it comes to passenger baggage airlines have plenty of good news to report. By associate editor, Tom Ballantyne.
April 1st 2019
While the adoption of technology has improved passenger satisfaction across the airport journey, the biggest jump by far in the last year has been in baggage collection, IT and air transport communications leader SITA, said last month. Read More »
In its 2019 Passenger IT Insights study, it makes clear passengers are demanding more mobile services in tracking baggage and that where these are available, satisfaction levels surge.
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“SITA’s research shows 26% of passengers in 2018 used their mobile devices to receive status updates on their baggage at arrival, which was up from 14% in 2017. At the same time, there is a growing demand from passengers to receive more baggage information via their mobile devices,” the Trends survey said.
A majority of passengers would definitely use mobile notifications that provided information on baggage at arrival, respondents told SITA. A similar number of those surveyed would use their mobile devices to track bags or report mishandled baggage.
Airline baggage systems and processes have reduced the annual rate of mishandled bags.
In fact, at a rate of 5.57 per thousand passengers, bags mishandled are recoding their lowest ever levels of loss or delay. Mishandled bags cost the industry an estimated $2.3 billion in 2017, a figure that encourages airlines to invest in cost-saving end-to-end bag tracking.
The SITA survey said travellers who tracked their baggage with a mobile device were 8.6% more satisfied than those who relied on traditional voice announcements or flight information screens to clear the carousel. Bags checked increased to 4.3 billion, or 1.2 bags per passenger, in 2018 compared with 1.08 bags in 2017.
“Today, airports and airlines are increasingly tracking bags at key points across their journey. Many airlines are offering some or all of this information to passengers as a mobile service, SITA director of baggage, Peter Drummond, said. “This service has a tremendously positive impact on passengers’ airport experience by reducing anxiety around baggage.”
Key findings of SITA’s report were gathered from air passengers from 19 countries worldwide.
