Q: Your agreement with Airportr claims it will “revolutionise the experience of travelling with baggage.” How do you plan to achieve this?
A: Sumesh Patel: We’re flipping the script on baggage handling.
This new collaboration takes checking in baggage out of the airport and puts control back into the hands of travellers.
With Airportr, passengers can check in their bags from home, a hotel, or a city location and skip the airport queues entirely. The bag goes straight to the airport and onto the flight, while the passenger travels light and stress-free.
Under our service agreement, SITA helps power the backbone of this experience. We’re seamlessly integrating our data systems with Airportr’s to provide full end-to-end visibility on baggage status, boosting efficiency for all stakeholders across a range of airlines.
Two SITA solutions will help us support Airportr operations: our cloud-based Flex platform and our Bag Journey service.
Supporting mobile and self-service check-ins, our Flex platform reduces reliance on fixed counters at airports, with an easily adaptable open API architecture.
SITA Bag Journey, our global baggage data repository, offers real-time, end-to-end baggage tracking.
Enriching SITA Bag Journey with Airportr’s data points will not only enhance tracking accuracy and provide end-to-end baggage tracking from off-airport locations natively within airline apps but will also unlock opportunities for expanded baggage service offerings.
We’re bringing all these technologies together to craft a baggage experience that’s smarter, faster and built around what passengers want today.
Q: So passengers can check their bags at home or in their hotel and then they’ll simply be delivered to their final destination.
A: Randel Darby: With Airportr, baggage can be delivered from city location to flight and then to destination baggage reclaim.
Where Airportr has a presence in both origin and destination markets through its supplier network and where the necessary Customs permissions are in place, baggage can be delivered on arrival from aircraft to destination address.
Passengers complete e-declarations on the Airportr platform and consent to this and their baggage data being shared with Customs to allow clearance of baggage without the passenger being present.
For example, passengers traveling between UK and Swiss markets today, and flying on Airportr partner airlines, can benefit from such a system.
Q: What other advantages will this new system have for the airline passenger?
SP: According to our 2024 SITA Passenger IT Insights report, nearly one-third of travellers globally would prefer to check in their baggage at the start of their journey and have it delivered directly to their destination, with significant interest in having their baggage picked up from their home or hotel.
Passengers are telling us they want a hassle-free baggage experience. More convenience, less queuing at check-in desks, more peace of mind as their baggage gets from point A to point B. And we’re listening.
The system we’re working on with Airportr makes travel feel lighter, literally and figuratively.
Passengers avoid check-in queues, breeze through terminals and free up their hands and headspace. For families, business travellers, or anyone juggling multiple bags, this is a game changer.
It also cuts down on anxiety. With real-time tracking, passengers will know exactly where their bag is at every stage. And the entire experience remains inside the airline’s app or ecosystem – no third party workaround, just seamless service.
RD: Airportr’s departure services collect the passenger’s bags from any home, hotel, or office within our service area and check them in for their flight.
This opens up more possibilities for the passenger with regard to their travel experience: like taking sustainable transport such as the train or bus to the airport without worrying about hauling baggage or making the most of the last day of travel bag-free.
Airportr’s arrival service means collection of bags from the plane and delivery of the bags to any address in Airportr’s service area.
No more waiting at the baggage carousel after landing; passengers are liberated to go from wing to curb in the least time possible and start enjoying their trip.
Q: Are the airlines onboard and what will it mean for baggage handlers at airports?
SP: Yes, and momentum is growing.
Airportr already works with leading global airlines including British Airways, easyJet, Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, KLM, Edelweiss, Virgin Atlantic, Singapore Airlines and American Airlines. For them, this isn’t just a passenger perk – it’s operational relief.
For baggage handlers, it means smoother volume management, fewer bottlenecks at check-in counters and more predictable workloads.
We’re shifting pressure from the terminal to a controlled, trackable logistics model, which benefits everyone on the ground.
RD: Baggage handled by Airportr’s logistic supplier network is typically collected the day before flight. It can be delivered into the airport at off-peak times and in advance of passenger departure waves.
This give ground handlers the opportunity to optimise peak resourcing and supports early loading of baggage, which can improve on-time performance, helping mitigate the risk of mishandling.
Q: So will the days of lost luggage be over forever?
SP: First of all, it’s important to clarify that the vast majority of mishandled bags are delayed bags; an extremely small percentage of bags are ever truly “lost.”
At SITA we’re working to reimagine and transform baggage processes, and indeed travel and transport as a whole, for the better.
We know without question that technology holds the key. From 2007 to 2023, even as passenger traffic more than doubled, there was a 63% drop in the rate of mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers.
This was thanks largely to the widespread adoption of smart tech for the automated tracking and repatriation of baggage, including SITA solutions like BagManager, BagJourney and WorldTracer Self Service.
As we continue to drive digitalisation with the right tools to address pain points in the baggage journey, we’ll continue to see the mishandling rate drop. This collaboration with Airportr to expand and improve off-airport baggage handling is just one of the ways we’re building on this mission.
Our model decreases the likelihood of mishandling, while improving the passenger experience, in a variety of ways: for one, bags are delivered from the pickup point to the airport according to a predictable schedule.
This can be set to avoid peak times throughout the day, alleviating stress on airline and airport baggage handling systems. This also means bags are less likely to be late to arrive to the plane for loading.
And, in cases where Airportr delivers bags to passengers’ final destination, the passenger’s experience remains consistent throughout the journey, leaving the destination airport with no worries about time spent waiting for their bag at the carousel.
