SITA has revealed that 30m bags are mishandled annually of which 204 400 are stolen or lost and never reach their owners again. SITA is a Switzerland-based IT provider that tracks baggage information for airlines and passengers in 220 countries and territories, including SA. The company also estimates that the air transport industry is losing about $2,5bn (R15,9bn) annually because of misconnects and mishandled baggage. SITA reports that the problem of mishandled baggage is worsening due to airport congestion, tight turnaround times, security regulations and rising passenger and baggage volumes. Acsa has been using SITA’s ‘bagmanager’ system in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. The system involves attaching barcoded tags to baggage to monitor them as they passed through baggage sortation systems. Solomon Makgale, Acsa communications manager, says that since the introduction of the system there has been significant improvement in on-time performance, security and customer service. However, he could not provide TNN with statistics as they are “provided by different airlines and confidential”. Sue Lewitton (suel@nowmedia.co.za)
