Delta Airlines, with a fleet of over 1200 airplanes, carries millions of passengers to dozens of countries around the world. And, while it is one of the most successful airlines in the world, it is not immune to the far too common problem of lost baggage.
Collectively, airlines lose millions of luggage items each year. However, numbers are way down since 2007, over 60%. But, that doesn’t seem to be satisfactory in the eyes of Delta’s top decision makers.
On April 28th, 2016, Delta announced that they would begin to deploy RFID to improve their luggage tracking operations. Delta is investing $50 million to implement RFID at 344 traveling stations around the world.
According to Delta’s press release:
“Initial deployments of RFID integrated throughout the baggage process show that bags are tracked at a 99.9 percent success rate, ensuring proper routing and loading.”
This new system replaces Delta’s barcode hand scanning system that has been in use since the 1990’s. According to the Verge, Delta will look to increase their baggage tracking accuracy from 95%. That 4.9% difference is expected to decrease Delta’s lost baggage issues while increasing their customer satisfaction.
Delta isn’t the first airline to deploy RFID technology into bag tracking operations. European airline giant, Lufthansa, starting working with RFID in late 2015.
Companies in many different industries are solving supply chain and logistical issues with amazing regularity. And more often than not, the solution is RFID technology.