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On this page:
- BIP teams up with NZ to cut mishandling
- Case study: how Aegean benefits from BIP
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IATA’s Baggage Improvement Program (BIP) team recently engaged with Air New Zealand on a worldwide mission to address and resolve baggage mishandling issues across its network. The BIP journey started three months ago with Auckland international and domestic analyses, followed by the recent self-help engagement at Los Angeles International Airport and the diagnosis visit at Melbourne Airport. The joint IATA/Air New Zealand initiative ended at Christchurch International Airport with a self-help engagement.
One of the BIP recommendations in Melbourne Airport regarding a new process for reconciling the baggage numbers has immediately been adopted by Air New Zealand. This process ensured that accurate baggage counts were available earlier in the loading process, allowing missing bags to be identified and found before the flight departure. There are limited places that a bag can be left in Melbourne airport, and the typical places are at the inbound carriers transfer collection point, the transfer baggage inject or the bulky bag screening area. These places can be checked fairly quickly.
The IATA BIP team identified some best practices during the engagement with Air New Zealand which have been adopted in the IATA BIP toolkit. An example of this is the tracking of lost baggage and the application of Worldtracer. The airport where the baggage is first acknowledged as being mishandled is entered as the 'Fault Station'. NZ will then notify the offending airline and ask them to investigate. A log of all mishandled baggage is kept so common problems can be identified and team based solutions applied resulting in a mishandling reduction.
Air New Zealand, who already has excellent baggage success rates, is committed to combat baggage mishandling, putting effort into adopting best practices and optimizing baggage handling operations. Niueni Tugaga, the Air New Zealand baggage champion for IATA, said "the external view that IATA brings to our operations has allowed us to identify some quick wins - other carriers need to watch out as we will be going Platinum soon!"
Case study: how Aegean benefits from BIP
At the end of 2010, the BIP team worked with Aegean Airlines at Athens International airport. Harris Markopoulos, Station Manager at ATH airport had the following to say after the project was finalized: “we have implemented new processes, not only in Athens and other evaluated airports, but also throughout our network in cooperation with our handling agents. We would recommend that all airlines should use BIP to improve their baggage processes which eventually would lead to customer satisfaction.
More on the Baggage Improvement Program (BIP)