IATA sees RFID (radio frequency identification) as one of the keys to transforming the baggage handling process. SITA worked with IATA back in 2017 on a detailed business case, estimating that RFID could reduce the number of mishandled bags by an extra 25% and could potentially save the air transport industry $3 billion in baggage mishandling costs. Airlines and airports are now proactively working together to boost their baggage handling efforts as part of IATA's Resolution 753, which requires airlines to "maintain an accurate inventory of baggage by monitoring the acquisition and delivery of baggage". RFID tagging is now 99.98% accurate, according to IATA. Within the next four years most baggage systems will be RFID enabled, which is a huge improvement on barcodes alone.

Paul Armstrong, Principal Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services: "To deliver a truly personalised travel experience, the first thing airports and airlines need to do is to extrapolate meaningful insights from all of this data to gain a deeper understanding of the customer's journey, so that they can optimise the experience from start to finish." We're going through a shift in technology that is unlike any other in our lifetime, and it's happening at a startling pace – much faster than anybody anticipated," says Paul Armstrong, Principal Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services. For over 12 years, Amazon Web Services (AWS), a dynamic, growing business unit within Amazon.com, has been one of the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platforms. AWS offers over 125 fully featured services from network analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), to Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Trusted by millions of customers around the world, from some of the fastest-growing start-ups, such as Deliveroo, Fanduel, and Monzo Bank, and major enterprises like BP and HSBC, to government agencies, AWS helps businesses to power their infrastructure, make them more agile and lower their costs. "The AWS cloud allows companies and organisations to focus on what really differentiates them – such as analysing petabytes of data, delivering video content, building great mobile apps or even exploring Mars – and leaves the heavy lifting of the underlying technology infrastructure to AWS.

SITA's Intelligent Tracking: A Baggage Management Revolution paper, published today, notes that more than 4.5 billion bags are handled by industry baggage systems each year but airlines and airports will have to cope with twice that number with passenger numbers set to double over the next 20 years. This will be a tough ask of the industry, despite the huge inmprovement in its baggage handling performance over the last decade. Indeed, improvements to technology and processes have halved the industry's annual mishandling cost over the past decade from $4.22bn to $2.1 billion. However, every mishandled bag is one too many and the industry continues to seek ways to reduce the number further. Ilya Gutlin, president of SITA Air Travel Solutions, says: "We at SITA believe that harnessing data and AI in a meaningful way will revolutionise how we manage the air transport industry in the next decade. "SITA has a unique role to play in realising the potential of data and baggage management is one area that will benefit.

The smart use of technologies such as artificial intelligence is expected to revolutionize the management of baggage over the next decade, promising to make mishandled bags an increasingly rare event for passengers globally. This is according SITA's Intelligent Tracking: A Baggage Management Revolution paper published today. The paper notes that more than 4.5 billion bags1 are handled by industry baggage systems each year but airlines and airports will have to cope with twice that number with passenger numbers set to double over the next 20 years. Already, through improvements to technology and processes, the air transport industry has halved its annual mishandling cost over the past decade from US$4.22bn to US$2.1bn. However, every mishandled bag is one too many and the industry continues to seek ways to reduce the number further.