Containerised baggage - worth the effort ?
 

Had yet again a baggage reconciliation departure delay of 1 hour because a bag had been loaded without the associated passenger, so the handling equipment and staff have to be found to come back, all the containers have to be taken out, bag pulled, then the whole lot put back again, it seems that containerised baggage is not all it's cracked up to be compared to bulk loading.

It also seems to require much longer to unload compared to the old bulk days, where even on a widebody the team might have all the bags out of the hold before the last passenger disembarks. Nowadays it seems it can add maybe 30 minutes to the process.

Given that the bags still need to be handled in and out, just in/out of the container instead of in/out of the hold, you have to wonder where the efficiency might be.

Its not really my area but offloading took much longer when positive reconciliation was originally introduced. As long as you know which container a bag is in it should be relatively quick to unload a bag although sod's law states that a bag will be in the first container to be loaded so five others will need to be unloaded to get at it. How long would it take the offload the first bag put into the bulk hold at the rear? I doubt it would be any quicker.

However you raise a question I have been thinking about for a few weeks. Might it be quicker to have bags assembled in some form of order in front of the handlers, particularly at an airport such as AMS with a lot of transfer traffic. As a passengers boarding pass is scanned a message is passed down to the ramp and the bag is located and loaded, early ones into containers and the last few into the bulk hold. If someone is delayed their bag will not have been loaded so the flight can still go and not miss its slot.

Obviously this won't work if someone on board has a panic attack but you can't cope with every eventuality. There would be an additional handling cost but it would save on delays. I don't know if anyone has done the figures.

On another issue, its interesting that the US does not require reconciliation for domestic flights (which I forgot when I was voluntarily bumped a few years ago). They claim that bags are screened in any case. Is positive bag reconciliation still valid given that:

1. Since 9/11 it appears that hardened terrorists don't seem to mind being blown up
2. Baggage screening has improved
3. There is an awful lot of freight on most widebodied flights (which has hopefully been well screened.

Views welcome on both thoughts.

Not sure what aircraft you're talking about or what part of the world, but I find containerised aircraft ten times better than bulk loaded :*

A good ramp team with equipment at the ready should be able to offload and onload 4+ cans in under 20minutes, we regularly achieve this with narrow body aircraft.

When it comes to bag offloads, containerised is also way easier. You (should) know exactly which can the bag has been loaded in and which position the can is in, should take no more than 5 minutes to locate the bag. By rights your ramp team shouldn't have to 'go find' the equipment to start the offload, the hi-lo should be left at the aircraft side until you've left the gate. That's what your airline pays for :ok:

It's much easier to locate 1 can then search through 35 bags than it is shift through 145 bulk loaded

Short connection - containers
 

On a short connection 30mins at Zurich the staff assured me my baggage
would make the onward flight as it was containerised. If mine didn't make it
nor would a lot of other peoples. She also said 'no worries Mr XXX, we do this
every day'.

Is it worth it? Leaving baggage reconciliation aside (already discussed) there are many reasons why containerisation is a "very good idea"™

Rather than four manual steps (load onto trolley, unload from trolley, load onto trolley, unload from trolley) there are two (load/unload container). Activity is mostly indoors, out of inclement weather, and can be more easily monitored. Less handling means less possibility of damage to handles, wheels, etc

Bags don't fall off a container as they do from trolleys.

On common connecting routes entire container can be connected. And baggage crews can know well in advance which containers contain connecting bags, and to which onward points. Low minimum connecting times (LX's 45 minutes at ZRH) simply couldn't work without containers.

And then there is freight ...

Of course not all of these benefits apply to all business models. LCC don't see advantages for them and don't use them.

A bit off topic. I once had a 10-15 minute connection in Zurich. Incoming flight from Scandinavia was late, connecting flight to Asia waited, I was picked up at the a/c in one of those fancy BMW's, driven through VIP Schengen to to the connecting flight. Doors closed immdiately after I boarded. Amazingly, my luggage made it (and the flight crew could actually tell me they knew it was on board). I'm still wondering how they did that.

Probably a despatcher (and the ramp crew) on top of their job...

The LX team knew that a connection was tight due late incoming aircraft. Bag likely was in first container (LX last-in, first-off containers are usually 'priority'). Ground staff notified and altered to 'make connection'.

Bag was located ASAP and 'hand-carried' to the departing aircraft (possibly in boot of pax-transfer BMW) Schengen check was only 'departure' - id Passport and if Schengen, simply check picture. If not Schengen, stamp departure.

Rudolf is your uncle ...

This might happen to a VVVIP at other European airports, LX takes pride in making it work for all their customers.

Need to back to the good old days
 

First time I ever flew, I carried my suitcase out onto the tarmac and deposited it on the baggage cart, then boarded. No chance of unaccompanied bags with that system.

Once we had 6 pax on a Miami - Austin trip who had to change in Houston - we had a 10 minute connection - and we and all the baggage made it.....................

and sure as hell we weren't VIP's...............

For wide bodied aircraft containers are the only way to load/unload efficiently. If you are having to take a bag off because the passenger hasn't made the flight or is offloaded for some reason it is very easy to locate which container their bag is in, and it is a lot faster to offload the container, even if it is in the positions furthest from the hold door, than it would be to offload and reload 300 bags and have to check the bag tag of each bag to find the one you want.

The LDL should remain in position until such time as the ramp despatcher has confirmed all is ok with the bags/freight. If the flight closes up and is held on stand for a long time and someone needs to get off and have their bags offloaded then it could be that the equipment has moved onto another flight.

A320 containerised a/c are very rare, most are bulk load to use the inplane system weight for payload, but only if the bag is in the doorway would it be faster than to unload the bags down the conveyor belt, check the labels and reload the bags that should travel up the conveyor and restack and re-net in the holds.

Urm, no they aren't?

Aer Lingus, British Airways, Lufthansa, SAS, Swiss, TAP, SATA, Alitalia and Austrian are just a few I can pick off the top of my head that I've worked with before. No doubt there's many many more across Europe and the world.

The LCC A319/320 operators rarely, if ever, have containers. Just about everyone else uses them (for reasons stated above)