Baggage Handling Overview

Introduction

This chapter will be of particular interest to Airlines, Baggage Handlers, and Baggage Systems personnel, who would like to understand the functions/activities in the context of the Baggage Information Exchange. Detailed guidance is provided on the Baggage Main Processes, Baggage Journey and Baggage Handling functions with associated roles and message types. This will enable interested parties to understand better:

• How Baggage Journey relates to Main Baggage Processes

• What each function/activity means in the context of Baggage Journey steps, and how they can be mapped onto an existing organization’s processes and procedures.

• What each role represents, and how they can be mapped onto an existing organization’s roles, which are likely to have widely varying titles and responsibilities.

• What each baggage message type means, and under what circumstances they should be produced.

Baggage Handling

In the wider context, Baggage Handling covers the entire journey of the held bag from the Passenger’s starting location to their final destination. Traditionally, Passengers would take their own bag to the Airport and drop it off at the check-in desk when checking in for a flight. The Airline would take custody of the bag and send it through the Airport baggage handling system to be delivered to the aircraft. At a transfer Station baggage handlers unload the baggage from arriving flight and handover custody of transferring bags to departing bag handlers. In the departure flow transfer bags merge with local originating bags to be loaded on aircraft. At final destination baggage would be unloaded and separated in terminating bags versus transferring bags. Terminating bags are presented to Passengers for collection in the Bag Claim area, thus ending the custody.

Since long, bags are segregated prior to loading, and packed into hold compartments or ULD according to this segregation. A standard split is between bags that travel to one destination or a second destination on a multi-leg flight. Another standard split is to separate between terminating bags at destination and transfer bags as the two categories follow a different main process. For bags traveling in bulk (loose load) the segregation is persisted with baggage carts between terminal and aircraft and by using dedicated hold compartments. For containerized travel, bags are packed into ULD in the make-up area in the terminal.

Increasingly, services are being introduced to offer flexibility and convenience for the Passenger. Courier services offer to pick up a bag at home and deliver it to the final destination. Other services are being offered, such as off-Airport drop off facilities at hotels, train stations and post offices. Within the Airport itself, facilities can be provided at car parks or bus stations. More use is being made of bag drop facilities within the Airport, rather than the check-in desk itself, as many Passengers will already have checked in online. Some of these facilities may be dedicated to an Airline, others will be shared between a number of Airlines.

In another development Crew bag processing is increasingly merged with Passenger bag processing although drop-off and collection-points tend to remain separated.

Whichever service is used , and whichever route is taken by the bag, it is very important to ensure that the bag travels securely from start to its final destination. This typically involves multiple parties who may be in control of the bag at various times, and who rely on accurate and complete information about the bag.

At its core, baggage handling is about moving the bag from pick up to its final delivery point (‘Logistics’) and ensuring that it is safe and secure at all times (‘Conformance’) while leveraging scale where possible. This requires a great deal of information to be shared between the various parties responsible for handling the bag, cart and ULD. These capabilities, and the information they require, are described in detail in the following sections.

User Stories

Various parties are involved in the management, transportation and security of bags from pickup to final delivery. In the context of Baggage Handling, these parties are:

User stories describe the high level requirement of each party, and the desired outcome. The following shows some examples of how different parties require information on bags in order to achieve their desired outcomes. Note that these are examples only. The roles and the naming of roles will be different in different organizations, even within the same organization.