Press Release Swissport
Geneva/Zurich, 17 September 2009 – Swissport International, the world’s leading provider of ground services to the aviation sector, has marked a further e-services milestone with the introduction of a new self-service facility for reporting lost baggage. The new “Lost & Found Self-Service Kiosk” enables any traveller who finds that their baggage is missing on arrival at Geneva Airport to swiftly enter all the relevant details and obtain the latest information on their delayed or missing bag.
Any air traveller who finds that their baggage is missing on arrival at Geneva Airport can now enter the details of the item(s) concerned at a special self-service terminal. Swissport’s new facility, one of the first of its kind provided by a ground handler with a direct link to Worldtracer, came into use end of August, and is available to travellers on SWISS, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, FlyBaboo, Alitalia, Air Malta and further air carriers.
The innovative new system, which has been developed in collaboration with Swissport’s Belgian-based partner SkyAssist, enables the traveller to scan-in their boarding pass with all their flight’s details, describe the missing item using a touchscreen function, and enter their contact details for the item’s subsequent delivery. The new facility thus totally eliminates the sometimes long wait to communicate all these details to local “Lost & Found” staff.
Once they have entered all the information required, the traveller will receive a printout from the machine giving the airline’s contact details together with a status report on whether the item has already been found and/or when the customer can expect to receive it. Initial experience suggests that this new form of lost-baggage reporting has been well received by the travellers using it, not least because they feel they are contributing directly and actively to the baggage tracing process, rather than dealing with the busy phone lines of the airline or the airport concerned.
Still no guarantee that bags won’t go astray
The new self-service lost-baggage facility is part of a broader drive to automate airport processes, and is a logical extension of existing self-service facilities such as web check-in and the self-check-in devices that are now provided on many departure concourses. Despite the new technology, however, a delayed or misdirected baggage item must still be registered at an airport before its location is reported via the system and arrangements can be made to send it on to the owner. Excessively tight connecting times at major airports still remain the prime reason that travellers’ bags are lost or delayed. But a number of working groups are looking into further improvements here, at IATA, the airlines, the airports and the ground handling companies.
Swissport and SkyAssist will now be monitoring experience with the new self-service lost-baggage reporting facility at Geneva Airport. They will then be using these experiences to further refine the innovative technology involved and offer this facility to further business partners in the aviation sector.
Swissport International Ltd., which is owned by Ferrovial, a leading European infrastructure and service corporation based in Spain, provides ground services for over 70 million passengers and 3.5 million tonnes of cargo a year on behalf of some 650 client companies. With its workforce of around 32 000 personnel, Swissport is active at 181 airports in 38 countries on five continents, and generated consolidated operating revenue of CHF 1.9 billion (EUR 1.2 billion or USD 1.7 billion) last year. www.swissport.com / www.ferrovial.com
Qantas Airways, the leading airline company in Australia, has selected BagAssist and BagAutorush for use in Australian airports and some important other oustations. This strategic choice was combined with a brand new unique web-service interface to Amadeus Altea DCS that further automates data capture and quality by pre-populating to the maximum data entries.
Zaventem, August 14th, 2009
SkyAssist, the Belgian provider of advanced niche IT software for the Air Transportation Industry, has welcomed some news customer for its product suite BagAssist, amongst others Qantas Airways, Luxair or SBA.
BagAssist, web-based thin client software, is the automated baggage handling solution for Lost & Found Departments and BagAutorush for Baggage Control Departments.
The BagAssist suite of products, unique in the market place, simplifys daily tasks to improve productivity. It is flexible and raises service quality for all handled airlines and passengers.
Baggage handling has generally been viewed as an end-of-chain, cost only department but with independent handling companies taking an ever increasing share of the baggage handling market, it has become crucial for these companies to differentiate themselves from competitors by delivering outstanding quality service to passengers and raising quality standards at a time when they are addressing greater airport security requirements.
The selection and deployment of BagAssist and BagAutorush by Qantas Airways management is a strategic decision that will not only enable delivery of improved services but will deliver a positive return on investment. The newly built-in web-service interface to Amadeus Altea DCS further enhances and automates data entries for the user to the maximum feasible by retrieving all passenger data from the system and pre-populating application fields with the available passenger and travel information.
Full Story (pdf file)
Brussels, July 31st 2009. Following the user conference successfully held in Brussels on May 26-27 2009, many new features have been presented and added to the BagAssist 2009 version like but not limited to: a complete new BagAdmin product easing BagAssist administration data management, a new kiosk version with more automation for the passenger, a new connectivity using MATIP to access WorldTracer, enhancements in all the BagAssist modules including adapted mobile version, and many more. A complete list of enhancements can be provided upon request. The product roadmap for 2010 has been also designed with new modules Action file and Lost Property, a re-design of auto-delivery checks and many more.
Brussels, June 30th 2009: new customers have been joining the Sky Assist customer community in 2009.
Luxair Services and SBA, a French ground handling company, have been joining the BagAssist product community, with production cut-over respectively planned for mid August and mid September. Both companies will benefit from hosting services facilities in our sub-contracted data centre in Brussels. CART, a French company active in airline claims management services, has been also joining us for PaxClaims, with also hosting facilities from Brussels.
Brussels, May 31st 2008: a new product has been introduced on the market with target customer the courier companies that deliver baggage on behalf of the airlines.
The new product, in combination with a new hosting centre facility that is now productive in Belgium , is using the BDS service from SITA to receive a copy of the BDO when a baggage delivery is made. The BDO is decoded and loaded in a delivery table. Call centre agents can search for BDO in that table or directly in WorldTracer (with an airline PID signature) and call the passengers for arranging the delivery. At each step of the baggage delivery process, an update is sent to WorldTracer so that the status in the WT file is always 100% correct. This new product therefore increases not only the courier staff productivity (by scanning the tags) and baggage control / transparency, but also increases the quality of information towards the airline and its passenger.