When traveling by plane, luggage is one of the must-have items. If luggage is lost or mishandled during baggage check-in, it will undoubtedly bring a lot of inconvenience to the entire journey.
"Smart travel and smart services" is one of China Eastern Airlines' important focuses for this year's Spring Festival travel. On January 28, China Eastern Airlines officially launched RFID technology, using this technology for the first time to unlock a "new skill" for "passengers who cannot speak". Passengers can easily check the transportation status of their checked baggage through the "China Eastern Airlines" WeChat applet, accurately lock the baggage transportation location, and quickly grasp the baggage dynamic information. It is like installing GPS positioning for the baggage, making it clear where the baggage is going.
Nowadays, airlines basically use optical scanning, manual interpretation of records, RFID, optical character recognition, GPRS, etc. for baggage tracking. More and more airlines will choose to use RFID technology. Andrew Price, director of baggage at the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said that by the end of 2020, half of passengers' luggage will be equipped with RFID chips. It is expected that by the end of 2023, all passenger luggage will be equipped with RFID tag.
RFID technology can quickly collect detailed information during baggage handling, reduce baggage mishandling by reducing the baggage error rate, and share these data in real time, allowing staff and passengers to know the status of checked baggage at any time. Existing optical scanning technology is inefficient and suffers from large limitations. Compared with optical scanning, the most obvious advantage of RFID technology is that it can read multiple luggage tags at the same time, is easy to operate, has high precision, and can be expanded to a wide range of applications.
Through the application of new technologies, chips will be added to passengers' luggage tags. During the check-in process, only information reading devices need to be added at each key node. No manual operation is required, and real-time sharing and precise positioning of luggage information can be achieved. This baggage information can also help monitor the status of baggage transportation, accurately track abnormal baggage, and quickly handle it. Especially when reducing passengers and flipping cabins, it can quickly and accurately find baggage and improve flight operation efficiency. It plays an important role in ensuring the normal flight of flights. It can also ease the work intensity of on-site operators and reduce actual operating steps, thereby effectively reducing the baggage error rate and improving the quality of passenger baggage transportation services and the efficiency of handling abnormal baggage.