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Finding Fault With Qantas' RFID Baggage Tracking System
lukehopewell1 writes "Australian airline giant Qantas has implemented new baggage tags powered by RFID technology. The RFID tag is encoded with the information on a passenger's boarding pass when placed in a bag drop area, and is summarily sent to its destination. But is it any good? ZDNet Australia tested the new systems and found that the system sadly had no intention of sending our cargo."
Yes a bit of a non-story......
This seemed like a poor test to me, they tested a really small hand bag on a luggage system that normally handles well...luggage. Why not test it with suitcase or duffel bag?
So they use jars for luggage down under? That's not a bag, mate.
This is a known issue with many of the first generation of the tags.
The new tags that are being sent out now do not have this problem.
Welcome to 6 month old news...
The old tags have the destination of the bag written on them. If your bag gets mixed with a bunch of others how the heck are the airplane techs supposed to tell them apart when the tags are identical? Scan each one of them?
Holy shit, that's a tremendously long article. Who approved this news again?
A happy coincidence, to be sure.
This is a ridiculous story. I use it all the time. It's the best thing yet.
1. Tag Qantas card on post to check-in
2. Flight details and seat number is sent to me in an SMS.
3. Put BAG on conveyor, tag Qantas card, press yes and no on screen.
4. All Done.
Maybe the story is, baggage scale at Qantas does not check items weighing under 1kg or some other threshold?
Great test of a system; Not. We have no idea if they actually placed the package in the correct area. "We test the system by sending a package" is not a study.
The airline employee couldn't get the airline system to accept the airline tag. Not just "three goes" but "every time tried" and just gave up. It's not like it worked the third time, but the airline employee admitted failure of the tagging system when it wouldn't work. It's not like it was done by a regular person who didn't get it to work. The people trained and paid to make the system work were unable to do so.
I wonder if it may have been because it was such a small bag and the bag didn't raise the tag high enough to be accurately read in the initial scan. Unfortunately, since they have the "automated" system run by airline employees, the guys trying couldn't get a chance to play with it at all to test anything like that themselves.
Learn to love Alaska
The fact they have never had a fatal crash (the only such major airline) is reason I would rather NOT fly with anyone else.
All major airlines never had a fatal crash until they had a fatal crash. The fact is that your chances of dying in an aviation-related accident are so negligible (several times less than driving your car anywhere at any time for any purpose) that taking such statistics into account when choosing an airline to fly is quite pointless.
The fact they have never had a fatal crash (the only such major airline) is reason I would rather NOT fly with anyone else.
They had a fatal crash in 1951 So that one is a myth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QANTAS#Airline_incidents
Given their abysmal safety record of late (a lot of engine trouble and hull loss incidents not including the problems with the Trent engines on the A380, QANTAS cant fairly be held responsible for a design fault). The Wikipedia list is a bit incomplete missing, including a pair of engine fires in a B747 (Link 1) (Link 2) in late in 2010. Not to mention Flight QF30
QANTAS have seriously dropped in the last few years from one of the safest western airlines to one of the least safest. But it's everything else that makes me want to fly Singapore Air, Air Asia, Virgin Blue or even Tiger instead of QANTAS, bad service, surly flight attendants, dodgy luggage collection, uncompetitive prices, bad food. Why pay $1100 to fly QANTAS from PER-BKK when I can pay Singapore $1050 for the same trip (Air Asia is often around $500 but they are a budget airline).
All prices in AUD, just add 5% to get USD.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Denver scrapped their automated baggage system years ago. Among other things, it had a nasty habit of mangling bags which (partially) fell out of the carriers.
-- Alastair
OK... I've used this 6 times so far and everytime it has worked first time. I like it as a system (although it is confusing for elderly or tech illerate people). Basically you just have to print your own boarding card and then drop your bag on a conveyor belt.
Checking in with bags now takes 2-3 minutes. I am not sure why the jar in the test did not scan, but it was a pity it was done with one sample only (a small object). With a normal sized suit bag it has worked for me first time all 6 times I have tried and most importantly the luggage has been at the other end each time when I arrived.
"Do you think we could wipe out world hunger forever if scientists figured out how to make AOL's Free CD's edible?"-
The fact they have never had a fatal crash (the only such major airline) is reason I would rather NOT fly with anyone else.
All major airlines never had a fatal crash until they had a fatal crash. The fact is that your chances of dying in an aviation-related accident are so negligible (several times less than driving your car anywhere at any time for any purpose) that taking such statistics into account when choosing an airline to fly is quite pointless.
First off, QANTAS had a fatal crash in 1951.
On your second point you're right, your chances of dying whilst travelling overseas is greater on the drive to and from the airport. So if you get to the check-in counter, congratulate yourself for surviving the most dangerous part of your journey.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Normally, if the RFID part fails, the barcode scanner in the top can pick up the code on the back of the tag, so I'd say the guys in the video might have had a better experience if they'd just put an "Out of Service" tag on the broken kiosk and moved to the next one.
The biggest problem I've seen is that there's not enough information telling people new to the system what to do. Qantas put a number of staff around the kiosks to help, but better signs and directions would have been much smarter.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
They work, they are cheap, you can stick them on anything,the limits are well known, and if the printer fails you can even send the tag by fax.
Bags are trying to form a self-organizing mesh network using RFID. That's why it doesn't work.
I know a guy who worked for on 747s as a LAME. After the incident with the lost gas tank he drew a picture for me of that tank in relation to the center fuel tank on the aircraft. Qantas were extremely lucky that the fuel tank didn't get punctured by the gas tank or the valve. An explosion would have been almost certain.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Did you RTFA? Of course not. Dude tries to check in a fucking jar of lollies and was surprised when it didn't work.
I fly QANTAS always (company deal). Their checking procedures are the most streamlined and refined of any airline there is. My last trip last week I didn't need to talk to anyone. Go to the computer type in my 6digit booking code, hit next 3 times and I got a bag tag and a boarding pass. Put bag tag on bag (didn't have a Q tag), put bag on machine, it acknowledge it and weighed it, I went to the gate and had a pleasant flight.
Some guy next to me had a problem and not 20 seconds later a service rep came and helped him through the entire process.
It took me longer to pass security then it did to check in. All airlines should be like this.
The rest of the article was mis-detected during the handling procedure, it has been placed on a different flight and should arrive tomorrow.
Guns don't kill people! Admins do!
I flew Qantas to and from Alice Springs. While I never had any issues and the service was excellent during the transpacific flight, I have witnessed some major screw up on other flights. My colleague left Alice a day earlier then I and when he arrived at the airport there were a huge number of people standing around in the airport lobby. He thought there was going to be a full flight to Sydney. Instead it turned out that the plane had left Sydney without any luggage. Nobody had luggage, and the next plane from Sydney wasn't until the next day around noon. This was during the Easter weekend, and I learned how seriously Australians take their easter weekend. :P
The air system in Australia is screwed up anyway. We've shipped some of our equipment via Air Express (by unnamed brown guys *hint*). The packages were shipped during the last week in April, and the packages still sit in Darwin as I type this comment. The funny thing is the large pieces of equipment that we shipped via ocean container will beat the air shipment home.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Is a checkin without human interaction something that is in use generally?
I have not encountered it, but it isn't really any less safe, all the person at the counter does is slap a sticker on it and put the bag on a conveyer belt. Any inspection they do of the bag is only caused by the fact they have to look at the bag to move it, the same thing chukers in the back will be doing anyway. Only a random selection of bags are searched between the counter and the plane, and you find a lovenote from the inspectors in your bag when you claim it.
Perhaps they should have tried an actual normal bag?
They did. The jar was wrapped in bubble wrap, which was then zipped inside a small backpack/tote bag. While I'm sure that the producers were hoping for a bag of broken jar and loose M&Ms about which they could snark at the end of the segment, there wasn't anything freakishly bizarre about the bag that they tried to check.
The one thing that was a bit unusual was the size of the bag--it was quite a bit smaller than most checked bags or backpacks would be; certainly much smaller than the carry-on limits for any airline. I can see a parcel that size being checked only if the passenger had multiple carry-on-sized items and the airline was being particularly sticky about their carry-on bag count. Since the automated checking system incorporates sensors for bag weight and laser scanners to detect bag size, it may be that this particular item fell below the check-in system's minimum size thresholds. It couldn't tell the difference between this small bag and an empty bin, so sent the passenger to the regular, manual check-in rather than risking checking in an RFID tag without its attached luggage.
~Idarubicin