European Airline Aims To Delight Passengers Through RFID Bag Tracking

Processing lost bags costs airlines a lot of money: more than $1,200 per thousand passengers, not to mention the inconvenience to passengers. Thus, airlines are highly motivated to apply new technology to solving this problem. Through an innovative combination of clever engineering, good architecture, and powerful middleware, a European airline has successfully implemented the first stage of its radio frequency identification (RFID) baggage-handling solution at one airport and is moving toward a full implementation of bag-level tracking that will dramatically reduce the number of lost bags and improve customers' overall travel experience. This project teaches a number of important lessons that application development professionals and enterprise architects should apply when implementing a large-scale program of new technology. The most important lesson? Don't be afraid to use your business needs to drive your architectural vision, even when key suppliers offer different solutions. It's the only way to get the right results in the end and is a common experience for RFID projects.