We’ve come a long way since the introduction of technology in the form of barcodes to airline check-in desks in the early 1970’s. Air travel has increased by around 980% in the last fifty years, at a compound rate of increase of 4.5% per annum, thanks to higher-capacity aircraft and lower fares.

But in 2024, the pressures on the travel industry and the technology it runs on have grown due to several factors in addition to greater throughput of passengers:

– passengers’ easy access to technology,
– increasing labor shortages in the sector,
– a squeeze on operating costs due to competition between carriers.

In this situation, barcodes and their associated manual processes are becoming less cost-effective in many areas of operations both above and below the wing. Legacy technology most impacts the more complex environments such as transfer hubs, but most operators will be aware of systemic issues created by automation systems envisaged and implemented in the last half-century.

While the majority of readers will be aware of the replacement for barcode infrastructure waiting in the wings – RFID – adoption is by no means universal. This article discusses some of the benefits of RFID technology and how its positive impact is felt in multiple areas of operations in different businesses operating in the aviation sector.

Baggage tracking

The problem with barcodes in the context of tracking passengers’ luggage is that they create a reactive, not proactive, approach to problems. Although the industry has improved its handling, security, and stewardship of baggage items, an alarming number of missteps are made each year.

The use of RFID allows organizations to know exactly where every item is at any time. Human errors are reduced because items can be automatically scanned at scale by one process. That means luggage can be checked at multiple waypoints quickly and without delay to the rest of operations. Each item’s history is more detailed, and companies can act without manual tracing procedures in the event of a problem, which are costly and time-consuming – sometimes when passengers are still in the air.

The reputational damage caused by lost luggage needs no exposition here, especially when social media can amplify the most trivial complaint. In some cases, technology like Apple’s AirTags gives passengers the wherewithal to locate their own lost luggage before airlines can, putting the industry in the odd position of providing services based on technology that’s outperformed by the phones in passengers’ back pockets.

RFID scans and automated recording technologies put companies back on the PR front foot, prevent errors from manual baggage tracking, and lets them react proactively in cases where items go missing.

Workforce issues

Operations above and below the wing have a recruitment problem, one that’s worsened since the COVID epidemic. Short contract and temporary staffing measures put a heavy burden on both sides of the wing, so optimizing workflows with limited resources is of primary importance.

Increased safety standards and compliance requirements mean that staff are necessarily deployed in roles that do not directly improve operations and customer experiences. Training staff in manual processes means HR spend becomes a constant resource drain, thanks to high staff churn rates.

Given RFID technology’s superior automation possibilities, there are fewer complex manual processes to teach, and the sector can better allocate its employees’ time in their day-to-day work.

Asset management

The beauty of RFID technology is that it is both mature (it has a long history in retail, manufacturing, warehousing and road logistics) and multi-purpose. Essentially, any item can be cataloged and tracked anywhere in a business. For essential safety equipment, asset scanning is simple and fast. The same is true for ancillary services based ground side, as seen in this example from JAS Italy, where companies serving the sector perform to strict SLAs and need detailed, real-time information on their goods and assets.

RFID Tags can be deployed to provide any level of granularity required, whether for tracking components and stock-taking of parts and tools in aircraft maintenance facilities or to, track luggage from check-in to aircraft and follow individual passenger meals from kitchen to aircraft galley. . The same is true for non-essential items above the wing, from meal trolleys to in-flight safety and entertainment systems.

Balancing the options

In some situations, current procedures and the reliance on barcodes are effective and within acceptable tolerances of quality assurance. But if the last 50 years’ experience has taught us anything, it is that the industry’s expected standards of performance and necessary safety will continue to rise.

Part of the resistance to RFID-based automation comes from the perceived cost of replacing existing infrastructure and retraining personnel. While there is an up-front cost, the benefits detailed above in even one area of operations would produce an ROI in a surprisingly short time, perhaps even a matter of months.

Because RFID technologies are proven to be effective in improving multiple elements of working practice inside a single organization, most companies have seen positive effects in their operational performance and cost management. Airlines could deploy the technology to address baggage handling issues, for example, but immediately see better financial results from human resources being redeployed to more ‘value rich’ tasks, a PR function that’s not constantly on the back foot managing negative coverage of bad customer experience, and faster turnaround metrics on its flights.

One attractive possibility for companies in the aviation sector is to live trial RFID in discrete areas of operations as proof of concept. This is an approach positively encouraged by Zebra Technologies, whose RFID (and barcode) technologies are already in service in airports and ancillary services all over the world.

As word of the benefits of RFID spread and more companies see past some of the ‘traditional’ roadblocks to implementing the next evolutionary step in the industry, Zebra Technologies Aviation Solutions can support, advise, guide, and implement this battle-hardened technology in the aviation sector.