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Delta Air Invests $25 Million in RFID for Luggage
securitas writes "The New York Times' Barnaby Feder reports on Delta Air Lines' plans to invest $25 million in RFID luggage tracking hardware and software over the next two years. This sounds very similar to the Jacksonville Airport RFID plan. McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas and Hong Kong International Airport have also announced plans to use RFID technology in their operations. More at the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Boston Globe."
I heard yesterday that people were now forced to label their cases while travelling using the French Railways, will it be possible that in a near future, they will be given RFIDs when purchasing train tickets ?
What about the Swiss who have the "Abonnement General" ?
Will they have to pre-order these ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
do i let them know where my _oh-so-private_ luggage is?
or do i prefer not having it lost every third flight across the atlantic and taking no responsibility for it?
hmm...
I, just as anyone else here, is worried over the potential abuse of this system, but there can be improvements as well.
I dont know whether its such an issue here, but outside US, anyone or anything can walk in to a baggage terminal and walk off with someone else's bag with out being stopped. And Usually this happens when the owner of the baggage hasnt gotten to the baggage terminal from the gate. What if Delta has a counter where travellers once they collect their baggage and on their way out, can scan their RFID's, verify they were the rightful owner of the bag and then remove the RFID to go their own merry way? Someone trying to steal the baggage could get flagged since his RFID will still be in place when he attempts to leave..
This might lead to long lines again in the baggage terminal and can cost the airline more, but does this make sense?
Rapid Nirvana
damn annoying.. they have to find the suitcase and offload it.. I'm sure this will make that a whole damn lot faster..
I often wonder what makes a person miss the flight at that point.... it's gotta be sex...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
many years ago (before elevated security) my uncle had a dog in the dog-safe cargo area of an airplane..... in short they lost the dog and it somehow got diverted to a wharehouse. he was pretty much told there was no easy way to find the dog if someone didn't hear it bark by chance. after much yelling they let him search a wharehouse. by the time he found the dog it had been there for over 2 days with no water. in the end the dog recovered 100%, but i am sure this kind of situation would make you think they are not so bad. if the RFID tags are slapped on like the current barcodes, is it a big deal? you rip it off at baggage claim. it's not like your bag get's a permanant tag on it that will track its traveling history.
it has to suck if a passenger ends up getting bumped from a flight last minute and Todd the baggage handler has to find that one passenger's bags. Actually last night my brother's flight was super delayed because some guy in first class threw a hissy fit about something and was ejected from the plane. it was while first class was still boarding so well in advance of the plane being loaded. theys till had to go in and find his luggage and pull it out. that has to be a lot of digging......
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently asked some "what if"-type questions in response to speculation that Delta might file for a Chapter 11 reorg by the end of the year. I thought it kind of interesting when juxtaposed against their $25M proposal for RFID-bagtag thing.
No, I did not RTFA...
This is not a dig on RFID or other tracking technologies. I believe they have their place and if they can help streamline operations, great. However, it would seem in the case of Delta, or pretty much any other airline than Southwest, they may want to invest that money in infrastructure upgrades, pilot salaries, fuel spec buys, etc. etc. It just doesn't seem like an RFID project like this money well spent at this time.
"I'm a karate man. Karate mans bleed on the inside."
It's not "misplaced luggage" that's the problem, the industry is being coy and cute, it's more like stolen luggage, or luggage broken into, then purposely "lost" to hide evidence of the theft. Happens all the time, been a dodge they been underplaying for years now. Over the years in the US, you are more likely to have your luggage stolen and broken into by airport employees than from random people just taking luggage. Here's a recent example of some of the trusted "homeland security personnel" in action.
This, in a round about way, reminds me of something I learned in class the over day (the part about losing the dog). In the 727 there's a switch affectionately refered to as "the puppy snuffer". It closes a valve in the cargo hold the allows air out of the plane. If it's closed, no fresh air can get down there, nor can the area be heated since no air is circulating.
On a side note about the RFID tags. Purdue's Aviation Technology department has been doing research into this with United Airlines at their Denver base to help prevent theft of the luggage, it's apparently a huge problem there. Most of the RFID work is being done in the baggage sorting facility, not actually getting the baggage to the passengers. The airlines can save a huge amount of money by speeding up the movement of baggage through the terminal since less bags misrouted means less money spent on fixing the problem. The tags also speed up an airplane's turnaround time by getting the luggage to and from it faster.
Currently if a passenger disappears between checkin and departure, the plane cannot leave with their luggage on board. This proceedure predates recent security improvements.
In theory, that's true. In practice, I can tell you it isn't. A year and a half ago, I had to cancel the second half of a two-part flight and drive instead. So when I landed, I told a gate attendant that I wouldn't be getting on my next flight (for which I was already checked through), and I'd need my baggage pulled. She phoned down and put in a request, along with a description of my baggage. A couple of hours later, they told me that my baggage had gone on without me, because they were too busy to get it.
More recently, the plane for second leg of a trip never showed up, so instead of flying me to San Jose, they flew me to San Francisco. They happily put my luggage on the next plane to San Jose though, even though they knew I wasn't on it.
Gives you a great sense of confidence, doesn't it?
Mobile (cell for you Yanks) phones are banned from flights due to (I presume) radio interference. Will hundreds of RFID tags not pose a similar risk?
Also Fewer than a million of the 80 million or so bags Delta handles in an average year fail to reach their final destination
So around 1 in 80 bags ends up on the wrong flight? So, assuming 1 bag/passenger, around 7 bags get lost on a typical 747 flight? That sounds an awful lot to me.
Don't get me wrong, this is great for the current system of taking 2 hrs to get people through security checkpoints, loaded onto the plane, along with tons of luggage, and then offloading them.
I just took a flight to boston from Philadelphia. The entire trip from parking at philadelphia to landing at boston took close to 3 hrs. It's probably 6 hours drive to boston. I'm not really saving much time here. Fortunately my company paid for it, but it was amazingly expensive because it was booked last minute for a customer.
What I want to see is the Air Taxi system that NASA and the FAA were working on. This was an overhaul in the Air Traffic control system which would open up new options in air travel. An Air Taxi could simply be a small prop or smaller jet plane that would be cheaper to fly and maintain, and it would be a lot easier to get on and off... like a taxi!
Or how about some MagLev trains? A 300+ Mph train on a safe and easy to maintain elevated track. If we could just find a way to create the infrastructure, we could make transportation more affordable and easier.
As it stands, our current system is old and antiquated and inconvenient... and expensive! We need some disruptive technologies to get a foothold. Changing the nature of travel will solve more problems than trying to put patches on the current system. I consider this RF solution a patch on a much larger problem.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I think it is safe to assume that such tags are as temporary as the current Paper ones that they attach to luggage or boxes.
I do, too - but we're hoping for the best. Other posts wrongly ASSume that all RFID tags within consumer goods will be as easily removed...
The potential for abuse is obviously greater than barcodes, which are (duh) visible. Many, many fears about this technology would be alleviated if the presence of RFID tags was not surrepitious. Instead of treating all customers like dolts, let's see our corporate overloads bend over backwards to inform us and dispel the misinformation... or (sigh) perhaps they should be forced to disclose this - at least in the case of soft goods such as deodorant and sweaters! - as display some prudence and respect for their prey.
when the Government mandates that all luggage travelling on planes require special 'government-approved' Travel tags
The way airlines are bending over for the Government in matters of data "sharing" - which perhaps they must, or should - and then proceed to lie about it in some cases, the transition from corporate overlord tag to Government tag may get blurrier before we know it...
As another poster sagely said, "The more you rely on a system like this, the more it can hurt when a wrinkle comes along." There have been some pretty disheartening cases this year where Gov'mint officials refused to doubt the accuracy of their databases.
It's disappointing to see geeks ridicule other geeks for even attempting to acknowledge the Law of Intended Consequences. The faith of some in the benevolence of corporations and bureaucracies - future ones as well, building on the things we tolerate today - is vast and, well, stupefying.
<grrr>