Designing for Baggage Service Systems

Travelling and baggage are two of a kind. Passengers are rarely travelling without any baggage and usually origin and destination of both passenger and baggage are the same. This also holds for flying as a means of travelling, whereas during the flight people and part of the baggage are separated. This is done because of a lot of reasons, like available space in the aircraft, security and safety and convenience.

From the perspective of the passenger, the experiences during the whole passenger journey (home to destination and back) is getting more and more attention. The journey as a whole is considered, as opposed to the different steps, provided by one party, such as trains, airports or planes.

From the perspective of the service providers (such as airports) this means a change in operations and behaviour. Baggage as such is no longer the objective, it is the passenger’s experience and the contribution of baggage to that. One example is that the so called ‘internet of things’ is increasing the availability of information, enabling passengers to constantly know where their belongings are. This includes knowing that the baggage is not on board. It also includes opportunities to transport baggage differently or change the collection process at arrival.

Another big change for airports is the increasing number of passengers in relation to limitations to further expand existing airports. The square meters at airports require increasingly efficient use of space. Also, there is an interest from airports to generate more revenue from experience related activities, such as the classic food, beverages and retail and new ones like gaming, entertainment or work. This means that there is an interest of airports to use lesser space for baggage and thus find new solutions to handle baggage outside the airport. To do so the market is exploring solutions to move check-in/bag drop outside the terminal and more and more parties deliver door to door services or home/hotel to airport services.

The above mentioned developments (and probably more of them!) cause that the baggage market in the aviation industry is changing. It is clear that these developments effect the way baggage is handled. It offers opportunities for suppliers like Vanderlande to support the different involved parties in these changes.

Project
For Vanderlande, the developments in baggage in the aviation domain mean that the approach to the market and the fulfilment of the market demand has the opportunity to differentiate.

Concluding, we see the next two main challenges:

• How to create opportunities out of the baggage developments in the aviation industry (incl. servitisation of current hard- and software & being more passenger centric)
• How to adopt these opportunities in an organisational setting?

This project was created with the help of PPP project allowance.