Atlanta—Delta Air Lines this summer at 84 airport stations will
replace hand-scanned barcodes on checked luggage tags with
radio wave scanner technology to improve luggage handling, senior vice
president of airport customer service and cargo operations Bill Lentsch announced
here.
The carrier has been testing radio frequency identification
baggage-tracking technology in Baltimore and next month will begin installing
it at belt loaders at the 84 locations, which covers all Delta's hubs and about
85 to 90 percent of its total bag volume, Lentsch said. The technology employs
scanners to read embedded chips in luggage tags via radio wave to track bags. This
makes the job less laborious for luggage handlers and automatically can catch
improperly loaded luggage, such as bags belonging to passengers who missed a
connecting flight.
"It's much more efficient, a safer environment and we
get a good scan on 99.9-plus percent of bags," Lentsch said.
Delta is investing $50 million in the technology and plans
eventually to track bags on all mainline and Delta Connection flights. The
carrier also is setting up interactive tracking for passengers to monitor their
bags through Delta's mobile app via the technology.