Logistics, research report: luggage flow issues in airports

Résumé du document

An airport terminal building provides all major passenger services, such as ticket sales, passenger check-in, baggage handling, and security. Inside the terminal, airline employees make flight reservations for travelers, issue seat assignments and coordinate aircraft boarding. All these services provided by an airport demand quality work that has to be done correctly and at the right time. Our study will deal with luggage flow in airports, look into the difficulties that airports face concerning luggage flow and the different ways to handle them. After answering these two questions we will see some examples over the world with regard to the best performing airports, and we will study how the cultural aspects can influence luggage delivery service.

Extraits

[...] From there, trays with the entire luggage run their way to a high speed classification line. For each destination, a turn way and a direct way is foreseen. These turn aside ways are disposed on the left and on the right of the main way. Thus, it is possible to optimise the flow of the baggage at that point of exhaust of the system of trays. The result is the reduction of the baggage that go across the system of trays, when the flights are not ready, and the increase of the hourly punctuality in the classification. [...]

[...] Nowadays, the most used system is the bar code. Lately, the main innovation is the RFID technology (Radio Frequency Identification). This technology, which is an important topic for today's logisticians, is more and more successful and used by airports. RFID is a great tool to coordinate, manage and rationalize luggage processing systems in airports. Furthermore, this technology can provide options such as anti-collision management and antitheft control. When dealing with delays and losses, this technology brings a new level of security for transports companies. [...]

[...] After this date, security controls in airports have increased in a dramatic way. The main terminals used X-ray machines in order to find dangerous materials or metal detectors such as guns, and animals trained to detect explosive materials on a passenger or in a luggage. The personel in the airports can order to search a person or his luggage in order to look for dangerous material, drugs, guns . Objects considered like weapons are forbidden as they are a danger for the the flight security (products such as lighters, nail clippers, inflammable or explosive materials After the 11 September's terrorist attack, the European Council and Parliament took measures to increase the safety in the airport zones. [...]

[...] In this research report, we will focus on non-passengers related delays in the luggage services in aeroports What is the chain of processes for luggage? The steps of the luggage process in airports: Check-in Customs and security x-ray Hub Motor-vehicle rack Plane loading Unloading Motor-vehicle rack Luggage delivery on rotating carousels There are some additional aspects to take care of in the chain: Machines can face breakdown, power outage. Handling can face problems such as strikes, lack of training Others matters of care: size and weight of luggages, special needs (such as fragile luggage), animals boxes Technical information about RFID 1 General description An RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. [...]

[...] A tag can include: An anti-collision management in its communication protocol allows the reader (or interrogator) to dialog simultaneously with several RFID tags within the range of its antenna. Antitheft functions, i.e. the possibility of detecting the presence of one or more tags within the range of the antenna without necessarily reading the ID number. These additional functions are essential for airports when they deal with luggage delays and losses. They bring a very new innovation. The current main manufacturers (market leaders) are: Philips, Texas Instrument, EM Marin and Sokymat. [...]