Airlines go for RFID

[PAXboy]

This has been reported through an on-line technical magazine that I receive. Dated June 6th 2005 from an IATA meeting. The link is: Silicon.com (http://networks.silicon.com/lans/0,39024663,39130986,00.htm)

For those that have not heard the acronym before, it is: Radio Frequency IDentification. These are the 21st century version of the Bar Code, as it allows coding of anything to be read without visual or direct contact. Some points from the article.

British Airways looks likely to be investing in RFID in a bid to cut its lost luggage bills.
[snip]
BA loses around 18 bags per 1,000 it handles and pays customers an average of £55 per lost piece of luggage, largely as a result of the sticker bar codes being damaged or misread.

I wonder if the push behind this change and costly investment lies here ...
While some airlines have already trialled RFID, BA has previously been reluctant to consider a full-scale rollout. However, the airline suffered a high-profile baggage disaster last year when 11,000 bags were lost following strikes.

[christep]

as normally the case these days, the rest of the world lags Asia. Hong Kong International Airport has been using RFID devices for some time now.

[PAXboy]

Indeed. "Wot - spend money?" The great pity is that BA and BAA could have had RFID installed in the (still under construction) LHR T5 and that would have been a lot cheaper than retro fitting it.

Spending money to avoid a problem is not something that modern Western style management does any more. They wait until it breaks and then they fix it. In this case, it looks as if the staff strike action last year was the breakage..

Although waiting until something has broken to actually fix it costs more than preventing the breakage, the bean counters don't like money going on to things that they cannot see.

Essentially, this is why we have had the big problems on the UK railways and I could quote examples in many other spheres.

--------------------
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

[Final 3 Greens]

The great pity is that BA and BAA could have had RFID installed in the (still under construction) LHR T5 and that would have been a lot cheaper than retro fitting it. To be fair, when that decision was needed, the airline industry was in deep sh*t and the cash wasn't available to pay for it.

From personal experience, I know that BA was contemplating many innovative ideas for T5 pre 9/11 and then that all changed very rapidly and FSSA and cost reduction became the priorities.

I also know that the lead time on T5 meant that some fundamental decisions about cabling and similar provisions had to be made relatively early and that was a shame and also a case of bad timing, since BA might take a different view now that the company has worked their way back to financial health.

I do agree about under investment in the British railway sector.

[PAXboy]

F3G, thanks for that, even though it does not come naturally to me to be fair to BAA ... :)

[Eboy]

That seems like a good application of RFID. From what I read about it, there are not all that many suppliers now, but the numbers are growing greatly. The chips can cost 50 cents or so now but should get down to one-tenth of that, according to one estimate I saw. There are similar economies of scale with the readers. But, I can see RFID tags getting mangled or crushed in baggage handling as well. How would your USB memory stick do hanging outside your bag? :) Overall, though, that's progress.

[christep]

They don't look anything like USB tags. The ones in use at HKG look just like a 8-10cm square of "sticky back plastic" with a pattern on it which is just stuck on to your bag. When you look carefully you can see a very small (2-3mm square "chip") and it seems that the pattern in the plastic could be some sort of print on antenna.

[PAXboy]

They are planning a different kind of RFID Tag for this application. The volume of units more than justifies such. From the article to which I linked: The chips will also be inserted into, rather than attached to, bags, meaning the tiny chips are less likely than barcode labels to be separated from the luggage. And, unlike bar codes, the tags can be read without a direct line of sight.