Mishandled baggage costs the global air transport industry around US$ 2.5 billion annually, and that figure could double by next year, one of America’s leading technology experts and inventors warned at a conference in Dubai today.

Dr Morton Greene, president of US technology company Inkode Corporation, told delegates at the Ground Handling Middle East Conference that 30 million bags belonging to air passengers are delayed or misdirected every year, with 204,000 of these being lost or stolen.

Quoting figures produced by industry expert SITA, Dr Greene used the conference, part of the three-day Airport Show taking place at Airport Expo Dubai, to unveil ground-breaking technology designed to revolutionise baggage handling and reduce these losses.

His invention, the Chipless Remote Identification System (CRiS®), uses radio frequency technology to accurately track bags. Inkode Corporation has partnered with Kenzi Technology, a smart security solutions company based in Abu Dhabi, to launch CRiS® technology throughout the GCC region. It estimates that the market will be worth an annual US$ 20 million and is using the Airport Show as an opportunity to make contact with regional airports and civil aviation authorities.

“Implementation of CRiS solutions will cause baggage loss rates to plummet due to a much improved capability for accurate tracking of passenger baggage, meaning that airlines will experience significant cost savings and an increase in passenger goodwill,” said Dr Greene. “Our participation in the Airport Show will mark the formation of Inkode Arabia, which will offer this pioneering technology to government departments, security agencies and private companies in the Middle East region.”

Airport Show Day 2

Currently baggage handling systems use barcode labels to track luggage, however this technology is prone to failure with damaged, misread or lost barcode tags the cause of the majority of lost luggage. Around 15 per cent of bar codes are incorrectly read by the tracking equipment initially or during transfer to the aircraft. Bags lost by the tracking system have to be sorted manually and around 1 per cent of these are never reunited with their owners.

Inkode’s CRiS® technology, on the other hand, uses special nano-resonators incorporated into the baggage tag material that can be easily tracked by a reader and provide unique codes for identification. Unlike chip-based Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology it is economical, not prone to damage by airports’ explosive screening systems and cannot be hacked into or cloned. The technology can also be incorporated into boarding cards permitting ticketed passengers to be tracked through the airport and linking the passenger to their baggage.

CRiS® has been installed at Boston’s Logan Airport, going live at the end of the year, and Inkode will also be running a pilot scheme at Abu Dhabi International Airport.

Visitors to the Airport Show can see live demonstrations of the technology, which also includes electronic passport authentication, hack-proof ID cards, a unique photocopier that blocks classified documents from being copied and a shredder that prevents unauthorized shredding of sensitive documents.

Inkode is among an international line up of more than 500 suppliers at the show, which opened yesterday (May 28). The Airport Show, now in its seventh year and organised by Streamline Marketing Group, takes place under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Department of Civil Aviation, Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline and Group, and Chairman of Dubai Aerospace Enterprise.

It attracts the leading airport and aviation suppliers keen to capitalize on the recent unprecedented growth in the aviation and airport development sectors in the Middle East, India and African region. This year it also features major international conferences focusing on ground handling, aviation security and air traffic control.