I'm on beale street, but my luggage is in Memphis ... Egypt?: deploying RFID-enabled baggage tracking systems to improve airline customer service.

Wyld, David C. ; Jones, Michael A. ; Totten, Jeffrey W. 等

ABSTRACT

This article examines the adoption of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in the commercial aviation industry, focusing on the role of RFID systems for improved baggage handling and security. Based upon secondary and trade literature, the article provides a timely overview of developments with regard to the implementation of the technology in commercial aviation. Particular attention is given to the initiative of Delta Airlines, an industry leader in the testing and development of RFID systems for improved operations in baggage handling.

The article focuses on two major contributions that RFID promises commercial aviation: (1) improved customer service though better operational efficiency in baggage handling, and, (2) increased airport and airline security. RFID's promise in matching checked-bags with passengers as an anti-terrorist measure is explained; this has generated interest from both government and industry associations. Though RFID technology is experiencing widespread adoption across many industries, the authors find that commercial aviation is poised to be a leader in full-scale adoption of RFID systems for baggage handling operations. It is concluded that RFID technology holds distinct advantages over the currently used bar-code system for baggage handling.

INTRODUCTION

It's every business traveler's worst-case scenario, whether you have just landed in Alexandria, Egypt or Alexandria, Louisiana. You're standing at the baggage carousel, having flown in on the last flight arriving that night. A constant stream of bags of all shapes, sizes and colors circle past you, disappearing one by one as your "lucky" fellow passengers claim their prizes. After ten or fifteen minutes, the carousel stops spinning. At that point, you realize that your checked roller-bag has not arrived on the same flight as you.

Now, you are in "lost luggage hell," and while the airline may do its best to accommodate you, no compensation from the air carrier--whether in money, miles or drink coupons--cannot change one simple fact: How are you going to make that winning presentation to a major new client at 8 a.m. the next morning? You realize that the only clothes you have in your possession is the warm-up suit you wore to be comfortable all day as you traveled, and your "killer suit" and "confidence tie" are likely sitting on an airport tarmac thousands of miles away, with no clothing store in the city that will open before the meeting (unless you happen to be in Las Vegas).

The system that you as a business or leisure traveler are dependent upon to correctly track your checked luggage to either the Memphis in Tennessee or in Egypt is based on correct readings along the line of a bar-coded label, bearing a 10-digit IATA (International Air Transport Association) number. Gartner's Research Director, Jeff Woods, commented that "bags are very well tracked right now" by the airlines and their bar code-based systems (cited in Morphy, 2004, n.p). Yet, this is little consolation when it is your bag that is lost. The baggage tracking systems of the world's airlines are mature, and even under the best of conditions, bar code technology works in correctly reading only 8 or 9 bags out of every 10. This means that the airlines continue to devote considerable time and energy to manually intervene to correctly direct the right bags onto the right flights, while spending great amounts of money to reunite passengers with their bags when the system breaks down.

Today, savvy airlines, even in their precarious financial positions, are seeing the shift to RFID (radio frequency identification)-based baggage tracking systems as a solid operational investment that can produce significant cost savings and demonstrated ROI. Airports as well are taking the initiative to shift to RFID-based systems, sensing the opportunity to produce better traveler satisfaction with their experience at a specific airport. In a deregulated world of airline and airport choices, these entities are combining forces to enhance customer service and give them a competitive advantage, perhaps for a significant window of time until such RFID-based systems are made mandatory.

In this article, we will examine the mechanics of how RFID-based baggage tracking works and the benefits it can provide. After a brief overview of RFID technology, we will look at the experience of Delta Air Lines, which is the first airline to publicly commit to taking the technological leap forward RFID-based baggage tracking. We will then examine the confluence of technology, terrorism, and yes, marketing, that will likely drive the adoption of RFID-based tracking of checked baggage throughout the world. The RFID movement is also being spearheaded by the U.S. government. It is clearly interested in securing the safety of the traveling public and with it, what financial viability the airline industry has left in the wake of the after-effects of September 11th and the decline in travel spurred by that awful tragedy, an economic recession, and record fuel prices. We will examine the government push in this area and concerns over passenger privacy. Finally, we will look at an alternative vision of the future of airline customer service, which may preclude the need for baggage service as part of the air passenger experience altogether.

WHAT IS RFID?

In brief, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) uses a semiconductor (microchip) in a tag or label to store data. Data is transmitted from, or written to the tag or label when it is exposed to radio waves of the correct frequency and with the correct communications protocols from an RFID reader. Tags can be either active (using a battery to broadcast a locating signal) or passive (using power from the RFID reader for location). A firm may use a combination of fixed and hand-held readers for reading RFID tags to gain as complete a picture as has ever been possible on exactly what is where in their operations. Reading and writing distances range up to 100 feet, and tags can be read at high speeds (Booth-Thomas, 2003). For a detailed explanation of the technology, see McFarlane (2002), Kambil & Brooks (2002), and Reed Special Supplement (2004).

The advantages of RFID over bar code technology are summarized in Table 1. RFID tags have been described as being a "quantum leap" over bar codes. Inc. Magazine characterized RFID versus bar codes as "like going from the telegraph to the Internet" (Valentine, 2003, n.p.).

As noted in an interview last year with the Harvard Business Review, William Copacino, Group Chief Executive Officer for Accenture's Business Consulting Capability Group, interest in RFID is picking up significantly throughout the global business community today. This is due not only to the fact that prices are rapidly dropping for both the RFID tags themselves and for the readers to sense them. More importantly, the technology is proving to provide significant improvements in operations and efficiency over traditional methods, while affording companies the concomitant opportunity to improve their security and customer service strategies (opinion cited in Kirby, 2003). From the perspective of Deloitte Consulting (2004), if RFID is viewed as simply an alternative means of identification and labeling to bar code technology, then businesses will have a "lost opportunity" on their hands. This is because RFID technology offers the opportunity for transformative change in internal business processes, supply chain management, and customer service.

BAGGAGE AND AIRLINE CUSTOMER SERVICE: THE CASE OF DELTA AIRLINES

The critical link in customers' minds between seeing their luggage on the baggage carousel upon arrival and their perception of the quality of an airline's service offering has been empirically proven. Each year, professors Brent D. Bowen (University of Nebraska Omaha) and Dean E. Headley (Wichita State University) produce their Airline Quality Rating report. These researchers' analytical methodology ranks airline performance in the United States, based on a weighted average of four key performance measures. These benchmarks have been validated as key in determining consumer perceptions of the quality of airline services. The four measures, drawn from data that the airlines are mandated to report to the U.S. Department of Transportation, include: (1) On-time arrivals, (2) Mishandled baggage, (3) Involuntary denied boardings, and (4) Twelve areas of customer complaints. Several airlines in the U.S. that have performed well in the quality survey, including Southwest, JetBlue, and Midwest Express, have touted their rankings in Bowen and Headley's (2004) report in their advertising campaigns.

Such has not been the case with Atlanta, Georgia-based Delta Air Lines. Based on the recently released Airline Quality Rating 2004 report (as seen in Table 2), Delta has now fallen to last among the twelve major U.S. airlines in consumer perceptions of service quality. To put this in perspective, while the airline's composite quality rating has actually improved over time since 2000, in that same time frame, Delta's competition has been making marked improvements in the service components that matter most to airline customers.

Today, Delta is a firm embroiled in the turmoil that is the American airline industry today. Facing rising fuel costs, a downturn in business travel, an uncertain economy, and discount competition, all the established, legacy carriers in the U.S. are struggling financially and operationally today, with prominent carriers such as US Airways and United barely surviving (e.g., see Tully, 2004). Delta itself has been the subject of bankruptcy rumors, and it has conducted layoffs and closed its major hub at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to stave-off its demise (Perez, 2004). In September, CEO Gerald Grinstein announced a comprehensive overhaul plan, including laying off thousands of employees, and got initial agreement from its pilots union to the recall of retired pilots on a limited basis (Fein, 2004; Weber, 2004). In the wake of September 11th, American airlines are finding that without the ability to raise fares or to spend lavishly to improve customer service, they must improve their operational efficiencies and performance to survive today.

One particular area of weakness for Delta has been its handling of air travelers' checked-in luggage. In fact, according to the recently released 2004 report (which uses annual data as of the close of 2003), Delta's mishandled baggage rate increased from 3.57 in 2002 to 3.84 in 2003. As can be seen in Table 3, Delta still remains below the industry average rate of four lost bags per 1,000 passengers. However, Delta's own performance is impacted by that of Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA), Delta's regional partner throughout much of the United States. ASA "earned" the lowest quality rating of all airlines operating in the United States, regardless of size. Luggage service is a particularly sore point for Delta's code-sharing partner, as ASA's rate of 15.41 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers is almost four times the industry average.

Despite years of trying to improve the quality of its baggage-handling systems, Delta has seen the performance of its current bar code-based system flat-line, with bar-coded labels being successfully read by scanners only 85 percent of the time. According to Delta spokesman Reid Davis, the airline faced the fact that it had "reached the end of the improvements that could be accomplished without new technology" (cited in Rothfeder, 2004, n.p.). Of course, just because a bag is not scanned correctly, does not mean that your bag will end up in Wichita Falls when you were heading to Wichita. In the end, Delta estimates that only .7% of all checked luggage is actually "lost." However, the airline spends upwards of $100 million each year to return these bags to their rightful owners and provide compensation to passengers whose luggage is never found (Collins, J., 2004).

Delta's top management has decided to tackle its "bag problem" head-on, looking to RFID technology as the means to end of providing far-better luggage service to its passengers. In the fall of 2003, Delta implemented a pilot test of an RFID tracking system for checked luggage on flights between Jacksonville, Florida and its hub in Atlanta, Georgia. In this testing program, Delta tracked 40,000 passenger bags equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags from check-in to loading on an aircraft. As can be seen in Table 4, the RFID-enabled system provided far superior reading accuracy than the legacy bar code-based system. In the spring of 2004, Delta implemented another pilot RFID baggage-tracking system at its Cincinnati, Ohio hub, producing similar results (Murray, 2004).

Through the two test programs, Delta learned several valuable lessons. It saw that tag antennas could be damaged by the static electricity generated along the conveyor systems (Collins, J. 2004). It also found that the lowest scanner accuracy rate (96.7%) was found when attempting to scan bags inside the unit load devices (ULDs), the large containers pre-loaded with checked luggage that are then loaded onto the plane. The ULDs are made of metal with canvas doors, and the metal housing impeded the radio signals. Delta plans to coat the ULDs with a material that can better reflect the radio waves (Brewin, 2004a). While the test programs were conducted in rather neutral weather environs, concerns were raised over the ability of the tagging systems to function in harsher environments, such as at Delta's western hub in Salt Lake City, Utah (Murray, 2004). Finally, there is a famous American commercial from Samsonite that shows a gorilla in his cage, tossing the bag around and eventually stomping on the suitcase. The obvious message is that checked bags are not always handled "delicately" by the humans or the machinery as it passes through baggage systems. Thus, it must be noted that baggage handling itself can damage or detach labels/tags, and concerns over the durability of the RFID-tag are genuine.

Even with limited capital to invest in IT projects, in July 2004, Delta became the first airline to commit to having RFID-enabled baggage tracking in place system wide by 2007. Delta plans to use passive tags, which will cost the airline 25 cents each initially. However, the airline hopes that the cost of the tags will drop to approximately 5 cents a unit by the time the system is fully implemented in 2007 (McDougall, 2004). Delta estimates that the full implementation cost of its RFID-based tracking system will ultimately fall somewhere between $15 and $25 million for its 81 airport locations. Delta has not yet announced plans for deploying the RFID-based system with its code-sharing partners, which would greatly raise the number of airports worldwide for implementation and the cost and complexity of the overall project (Murray, 2004). While this represents a significant investment, the ROI equation shows that this cost can be recouped in far less than a single year. This makes Delta unique, as it is one of the few examples to date in any industry where the decision to invest heavily in automatic identification technology is based on the desire to dramatically improve customer service.

Delta's RFID-enabled baggage system will give the company the ability to track a bag from the time a passenger checks it in at his/her departing airport till the time the bag is claimed at the baggage carousel at the arrival airport. At check-in, the RFID tag's serial number will be associated with the passenger's itinerary. Delta will position fixed readers at check-in counters and on conveyor belts where the bags are sorted. The airline will also equip baggage handlers with portable readers and outfit aircraft cargo holds with readers built into them. RFID readers can also be positioned to scan bags as they are loaded and unloaded from the unit load devices (ULD the large containers that are loaded onto the plane). Through this surveillance system, Delta should be able to all but eliminate the problem of misloaded and misdirected checked luggage, and the attendant costs of reuniting the lost bag with the passenger. Ramp and flight crews will be able to make certain that the right luggage is on board before an aircraft takes off. And, in the event a passenger's bag is misdirected, Delta can instantly locate the bag through its RFID reader and more quickly route it to the passenger's destination. Pat Rary, a Delta bag systems manager, illustrated the fact that RFID will allow the airline to take proactive customer service steps on baggage problems. He observed that: "With this technology, we won't have to wait for the customer to come tell us that the bag is lost. We can tell the customer it's on the wrong plane and start responding before it's a crisis. Eventually, RFID should be able to signal an arriving passenger's cell phone with news of how long it will be before the bag is on the carousel" (cited in Field, 2004, p. 61).

Rob Maruster, Delta's Director of Airport Strategy, recently commented in Airline Business that RFID tracking: "will transform the airline on the ramp as much as radar did to transform air traffic control. When that happened, it was as if a light was turned on and people said, oh, so that's where the planes are. This technology will do that for bags. People will say, oh, so that's where the bags are" (cited in Field, 2004, p. 60). Delta's ultimate goal is to have a baggage tracking system that will have a "zero mishandling rate" (Brewin, 2004a, n.p.).

RFID AND BAGGAGE SECURITY

Unfortunately, in our post-September 11th world, there are worse things that can happen in the air or at the airport than losing one's luggage or even eating the "Chef's Surprise" at the airport restaurant. The twin, nearly simultaneous jet crashes in Russia in August have now been attributed to in-flight bomb detonations by Chechan female suicide bombers, raising fears that suicidal terrorists could use similar methods to attack the West (Hosenhall and Kuchment, 2004). While enhanced physical passenger screening, such as that just announced by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in the U.S., can deter such would-be suicidal terrorists, since September 11th, the airline industry and national governments have placed renewed vigilance on screening both carry-on and checked bags for explosives and on making sure that all checked bags are matched to passengers who have actually boarded the aircraft. Writing in Management Services, Philippa Collins (2004) observed that one of the very real near-term applications for RFID technology is the prospect that a passenger's checked bag will be able to tell security personnel and the airline if it has not been properly screened.

The need for matching passengers with checked luggage has been at the forefront of antiterrorism concerns ever since the in-flight bombings in the 1980s that took down a Pan American 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland and an Air India jumbo jet over the Atlantic. Out of this concern, airlines must routinely remove bags from aircraft when a passenger fails to board, out of fear that a homicidal, rather than suicidal, terrorist would attempt to down an airliner with a bomb in an unaccompanied, checked suitcase (AIM Global, 2004).

Often, this is a time-intensive, laborious process, which can delay flight departures indefinitely, as ramp workers face the daunting task of finding the bags in question out of the hold of an aircraft or from the ULDs. Airport operations managers and airline flight crews will often tell horror stories of how the inability to find the one or two targeted bags of a non-boarding passenger in and amongst the bags of 300-400 passengers on a jumbo jet has caused flights to be delayed for hours, costing the airline countless amounts of goodwill amongst the passengers, even if such measures are done precisely to safeguard their transit and their very lives. Thus, airports are also very interested in providing better baggage tracking as part of their customer service equation.

In Florida, the Jacksonville International Airport installed an RFID-based system in 2003 to direct checked luggage through their newly installed baggage handling system. The city's airport authority and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) jointly funded the Jacksonville system. The contractors for the Jacksonville Airport project included FKI Logistex and SCS Corporation. The Jacksonville system was designed to only handle outbound luggage, directing checked bags from the check-in counter through explosive detection screening and on to the correct terminal serviced by the respective airlines. All checked bags have a bar code label affixed to them, with approximately 12% receiving an additional RFID tag, due to their being selected for special screening attention by a computer-assisted passenger profiling system (CAPPS) (Trebilcock, 2003).

The Jacksonville pilot program tested the effectiveness of both disposable and reusable tags. Passengers checking in on the north side of the airport who were selected by the CAPPS had a disposable tag attached to their luggage, while those checking in on the airport's south side had a reusable, credit card size tag affixed to their checked bags. Each reusable tag costs $2.40, and each disposable tag costs 63 cents. Van Dyke Walker, Jr., Director of Planning and Development for the Jacksonville Airport Authority, believes that his airport's system is a precursor of what is to come. He commented that "RFID is the future of airline baggage tracking, and we want to be ready" (cited in Trebilcock, 2003, p. 40).

Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport is considered to be an ideal proving ground for RFID baggage tracking, due to the fact that the vast majority of the passengers using the airport either begins or ends their journeys there. In fact, as Las Vegas sees only 8% of its passengers connecting to other flights at its airport, a rate that is only second to Los Angeles International Airport (Anonymous, "Tag Tracking," 2003). Las Vegas' system is designed to track all checked luggage, routing bags through bomb detection screening and on to the proper aircraft. From the perspective of Randall H. Walker, McCarran International Airport's Director of Aviation, the RFID-enabled baggage handling system "becomes a win for all concerned: the traveler, the airport, the TSA and the airlines" (cited in Anonymous, "Hong Kong Airport Picks RFID Baggage Tracking," 2004). In 2005, the TSA is slated to have similar systems in place at both LAX and Denver International as well (AIM Global, 2004). Alaska Airlines also uses the tags on its international flights out of San Francisco International Airport (Woods, 2004, n.p.)

Internationally, RFID-based baggage tracking systems are being tested in Narita, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Amsterdam (CNETAsia, 2004; Atkinson, 2002). In fact, the RFID baggage tracking system being installed at Hong Kong International Airport is regarded as the largest automatic identification system to be developed and deployed to date in Asia. Hong Kong's airport is one of the busiest in the world, handling approximately 35 million passengers each year. Y. F. Wong, who heads Technical Services and Procurement at the Airport Authority of Hong Kong, believes that the airport's investment in RFID technology is essential, as it addresses the need for improved customer satisfaction, while also enabling increased levels of security assurances (cited in Anonymous, "Hong Kong Airport Picks RFID Baggage Tracking," 2004). According to John Shoemaker, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Matrics, who will supply the airport with upwards of 80 million smart labels over the next five years, "What is key about Hong Kong International is that it is deploying this system to also save money" (quoted in J. Collins, 2004, n.p.).

RFID baggage tracking is thus a means to an end for airports--with the end being improved baggage security. Simon Ellis, a supply-chain futurist at Unilever, recently observed that: "Security is just a sub benefit of visibility. Knowing exactly what is where gives you better control ..., and if you have better control you have better security" (cited in Atkinson, 2002, n.p.).

CONCLUSION

In a widely read article in Scientific American, Roy Want (2004) predicted that airline baggage tracking would be one of the first commercially viable RFID applications. The potential market size is outstanding, as the world's airlines currently handle approximately two billion checked bags annually (Anonymous, "Luggage Tracking Trial by Delta Air Lines," 2003). In the view of AIM Global (2004), with the proven accuracy and effectiveness of RFID-enabled baggage tracking, it may just be a matter of time before the TSA mandates that such automatic identification technology-based systems be employed in the U.S. However, such mandates, whether in the U.S. alone or in conjunction with other civil aviation authorities worldwide, would raise a multitude of issues. These include who will bear the costs of such systems, the need for standards, and the need for international airlines that fly to the U.S. and/or interconnect with U.S.-based carriers to employ such RFID tagging.

Paul Coby, Chief Information Officer of British Airways, believes that the airline industry needs to work together to ensure that investments in technologies such as RFID will yield the fullest possible ROI and customer service benefits. He suggested that the International Air Transport Association (IATA) should play a leading role in driving this technology, so as to ensure that the industry adopts common standards. Coby commented, "for technology to fully bring business change, the whole industry needs to move forward" (cited in Thomas, 2004, n.p.). In June, Delta and United jointly proposed an RFID-specification for baggage to the IATA (Collins, J., 2004).

The need for a unique air transport standard is obvious for the not-so-distant future, looking to the day when luggage will contain items with their own RFID tags, say on Gillette razors, Benetton shirts, and items purchased from Target, Wal-Mart, Metro, or countless other retailers. Wal-Mart has mandated the use of tags on merchandise it purchases from key suppliers by January 2005 (RFID Journal, 2003), thus prompting other retailers to follow suit, or at least begin investigating the technological investment such a move to RFID will require. For example, Boscov's see customer service benefits in terms of reduced stock-outs, yet worries about the tag and infrastructure costs (Sullivan, 2004a). Tesco (U.K.) announced plans to expand its RFID test project to include eight big-name packaged-goods manufacturers like Proctor & Gamble (Sullivan, 2004b). Others, like Federated's Lazarus store in Columbus, Ohio, and restaurants in Texas have seen improvements in customer service in terms of improved sales transactions (Coupe, 2003; Dunne and Lusch, 2005, p. 405). However, retailers will need to address the issue of consumer privacy, much like the airlines must do (Dunne and Lusch, 2005, p. 306; Lacy 2004).

It is even more important when one considers that the aircraft itself will likely have key parts tagged with RFID sensors in the near future. Boeing and Airbus are taking the lead in outfitting their new passenger jets, the 7E7 and A380 respectively, with RFID-tagged parts to provide a new level of historical and performance information on the key components. The two dominant commercial aircraft manufacturers are cooperatively working to produce industry standards, which is especially important since they share seventy percent of their supplier base (Tegtmeier, 2004). Likewise, Federal Express and Delta have pilot tested equipping both flight deck electronics and engine parts with RFID sensors (Brewin, 2004a). Thus, in only a matter of a few years, commercial airliners will be perhaps one of the most concentrated locations for RFID tags, making standards a necessity for avoiding problems with signal collision and information overload.

Tracking luggage with RFID may not be the only automatic identification technology we will see in use at the airport. By 2015, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has proposed putting RFID chips in the over a billion passports worldwide. This move, while drawing fire from civil rights groups around the globe, may become a reality, all in an effort for the airlines and civil authorities to have better insights into who exactly to let on their aircraft (Jones, 2004). Likewise, the United States' Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has begun looking to how to use RFID-tagged boarding passes to improve airline security. The goals would be both to enhance airport security by giving facility security the ability to track passengers' movements within the airport and to speed passengers through airport security lines. The latter would be accomplished by linking the issuance of boarding passes to the proposed "registered traveler" program. This would allow frequent fliers who have been through a background check to be given specially tagged boarding passes, which they could then use to be directed through special, "fast lanes" at security checkpoints (Brewin, 2004b).

The TSA is investigating the RFID-enabled boarding pass concept in concert with a number of other airport security initiatives in the United States. However, working in conjunction with the Federal Aviation Administration's Safe Skies for Africa Initiative, RFID-tagged boarding passes are already being deployed in an undisclosed number of African states (Brewin, 2004b). There are concerns however as to how this data will be utilized in airport security. From a practical standpoint, critics have scoffed at the jumble of data that would be created by trying to track thousands of passengers simultaneously in an airport. Privacy advocates also object to the invasiveness of the tracking, leading one to ask, "Are they going to track how long I spend in the ladies' room?" (cited in Brewin, 2004b, n.p.).

There is also concern that airports, in their push to provide wireless access for patrons, may find that such Wi-Fi systems can conflict with RFID tracking innovations. In fact, in mid-2004, Northwest Airlines discovered that the wireless communication system used by its baggage handling operators was overwhelmed by a new Wi-Fi antenna installed by AT&T Wireless Services. The problem was alleviated after AT&T agreed to adjust its power levels, but it seriously impinged on Northwest's own wireless systems for a time (Schatz, 2004).

On a final note, moving to RFID may be the only way airlines may be able to even continue handling checked luggage in the future, both from a security and a cost standpoint. In fact, one company, the British-based low fare carrier, Ryanair, has announced its intention to eventually stop providing checked baggage service altogether. Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's maverick CEO, believes that by banning checked luggage, the cost of flying each passenger could be cut by at least fifteen percent. This would be due to the elimination of the staff needed at check-in counters and in baggage handling operations. Not only would there be a direct cost savings for Ryanair, but there is the very real prospect for improved service, as passengers would get through the airport much faster and that their aircraft could be utilized more productively. The latter would be due to the quicker turnarounds that the airline could achieve by not having to load outbound and unload inbound aircraft luggage holds (Noakes, 2004).

Over the next few years, Ryanair has planned to take steps to modify its passengers' mindsets regarding their baggage to encourage them to carry more of their baggage with them on board. The airline has already raised the weight limits for carry-on bags, while hiking its fees (up 17%) for overweight checked luggage. O'Leary even intends for the airline to begin giving passengers a small rebate if they choose to not check a bag sometime in 2005. While Ryanair's competition scoffs at O'Leary's luggage-ban plan, he notes that other innovations in the airline industry, including the elimination of paper tickets and web-based travel booking, drew similar derision when they were first introduced (Noakes, 2004; Johnson and Michaels, 2004).

While the Ryanair gambit may prove to be prescient, for the near term, passenger luggage service will continue to be a cost of doing business for airlines. Gene Alvarez, an analyst with Meta Group, predicts that RFID-based baggage tracking will become standard throughout the airline industry over the next decade (op. cited in Brewin, 2004c). In the end, the world's fleet of commercial airliners may well become the most RFID-equipped vehicles on earth.

A mid-September survey by software supplier Wavelink found that approximately four out of five Frontline Conference and Expo attendees were currently piloting the technology or planned to do so in the next two years. Key concerns of the company executives included cost, lack of standards, and an early, untested market. Yet they expect adoption of the technology to grow, as it matures and benefits become reality (Gonsalves, 2004). However, as supply chain consultant Scott Elliff argues, all the new technology "simply isn't a substitute for superior business practices" (Elliff, 2004). The airline industry needs to remember this and, better yet, implement better business practices.

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David C. Wyld, Southeastern Louisiana University

Michael A. Jones, Southeastern Louisiana University

Jeffrey W. Totten, Southeastern Louisiana University Table 1 RFID versus Bar Code Technology Bar Codes RFID Tags Bar Codes require line of RFID tags can be read or updated sight to be read without line of sight Bar Codes can only be read Multiple RFID tags can be read individually simultaneously Bar Codes cannot be read if RFID tags are able to cope with they become dirty or damaged harsh and dirty environments Bar Codes must be visible to RFID tags are ultra thin, and be logged they can be read even when concealed within an item Bar Codes can only identify RFID tags can identify a specific the type of item item Bar Code information cannot Electronic information can be be updated over-written repeatedly on RFID tags Bar Codes must be manually RFID tags can be automatically tracked for item tracked, eliminating human error identification, making human error an issue Table 2 2004 Airline Quality Ratings Rank Airline AQR Score 1 JETBLUE AIRWAYS -0.64 2 ALASKA AIRLINES -0.74 3 SOUTHWEST AIRLINES -0.89 4 AMERICA WEST AIRLINES -0.89 5 US AIRWAYS -0.96 6 NORTHWEST AIRLINES -1.02 7 CONTINENTAL AIRLINES -1.04 8 AIRTRAN AIRWAYS -1.05 9 UNITED AIRLINES -1.11 10 ATA AIRLINES -1.17 11 AMERICAN AIRLINES -1.24 12 DELTA AIR LINES -1.24 13 AMERICAN EAGLE AIRLINES -2.10 14 ATLANTIC SOUTHEAST AIRLINES -5.76 INDUSTRY AVERAGE -1.14 Source: Bowen, Brent D., and Dean E. Headley (2004), Airline Quality Ratings 2004, W. Frank Barton School of Business, Wichita, Kansas. http://www.unomaha.edu/~unoai/aqr/2004%20synopsis.htm. Table 3 Mishandles Baggage Reports for U.S. Airlines--June 2004 Rank Airline Reports per 1,000 Passengers 1 JETBLUE AIRWAYS 2.81 2 AIRTRAN AIRWAYS 3.02 3 SOUTHWEST AIRLINES 3.16 4 HAWAIIAN AIRLINES 3.18 5 ALASKA AIRLINES 3.32 6 CONTINENTAL AIRLINES 3.32 7 AMERICA WEST AIRLINES 3.55 8 NORTHWEST AIRLINES 3.80 9 ATA AIRLINES 3.80 10 UNITED AIRLINES 3.83 11 US AIRWAYS 4.10 12 DELTA AIR LINES 4.23 13 AMERICAN AIRLINES 4.66 14 EXPRESSJET AIRLINES 5.29 15 AMERICAN EAGLE AIRLINES 9.00 16 COMAIR 10.21 17 SKYWEST AIRLINES 10.71 18 ATLANTIC COAST AIRLINES 13.42 19 ATLANTIC SOUTHEAST AIRLINES 13.97 Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, Air Travel Consumer Report, August 2004. http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/reports/2004/0408atcr.doc. Table 4 Results from Delta Air Liles Pilot RFID Test in Jacksonville Errors per 40,000 bags RFID Bar Code Worst Case 1,320 (96.7%) 8,000 (80.0%) Best Case 80 (99.8%) 6,000 (85.0%) Source: AIM Global (2004).