Lost Baggage Handling

My baggage got lost in my regular GVA-BCN commute. At my airport arrival, the ground handling staff first asked me if I had written my name on the luggage. During 4 days, nobody knew where it was, and it was delivered to me the 5th day. Interestingly, the usual bar codes on the baggage label got overwritten by hand. Apparently, as soon as my belonging left the standard baggage handling procedure, it got uniquely handled by humans using analogical means. Since humans handle exceptions, the elected support was handwriting on paper. The fail-over technique – me handwriting my name on the baggage – is also based on analogical support. Is this the best/cheapest way to handle exceptions? Digital means (bar codes or RFID) can show limits in interfacing with us, especially when we need to take over the control of the system to correct the errors.

On an average, airlines globally spend as much as $1.6 billion a year on mishandled baggage (source). Around 14 baggages over 1000 are lost and 85% of this lost baggages never find their owner. The big source of error is actually the airport hourly baggage processing limit that is sometimes reached. Bar code reading systems slow this process because around 15 percent of bar codes printed onto the labels placed on checked-in luggage are not properly read automatically. The introduction of RFID is supposed to improve the situation as around 99 percent of RFIDed baggage are read automatically. However will RFID improve the exception handling? A damaged basic RFID will provide 0 data, while a paper label sometimes deliver clues (visual affordance). Attaching handwritten personal information on the belonging will probably become more important.

Update Dec 2006: A story that goes into my analysis: Qantas: proud promoters of worst-practice baggage RFID tracking

Relation to my thesis: Example of the limits of digitalization in exception handling and source of uncertainty.