Common-Use Bag Drop launched at Zurich Airport

Swissport International, a Ground Aviation Services specialist, and SITA have launched a passenger bag-drop solution which allows a single bag-drop counter to be used to service passengers from several airlines in the same queue.

Ten such counters have been created and successfully tested at Zurich Airport to the benefit of eleven airlines, all members of Star Alliance (Adria Airways, Austrian Airlines, Blue1, bmi, Croatia Airlines, LOT - Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Spanair, Swiss International Air Lines and TAP – Portugal) whose host departure control system is recognized by SITA’s new software solution known as PassengerBagdrop which eliminates a potential bottleneck in the passenger management process.

Anita Elste, Manager, Product and Services for Star Alliance, said, “We have paid a number of site visits to Zurich to watch PassengerBagdrop in action. Multi-airline or common-use bag-drop counters are much more efficient and the average time passengers spend being processed has dropped to just under 30 seconds. Handling agents access a single standard user interface for all supported airlines.”

PassengerBagdrop also supports passengers who have already checked in online but, for whatever reason, do not have a boarding pass as it can easily re-print the original boarding pass.

Bruno Frentzel, SITA Senior Vice President for Applications Solutions, said: “This is a real innovation for a smarter process flow at airports. PassengerBagdrop is an important development in SITA’s Baggage Portfolio. We also intend to innovate further with our PassengerBagdrop Off-Airport. This will be specifically designed for logistics companies to allow them to provide departing airline passengers with basic flight check-in and a secured baggage pick-up from off-airport locations such as hotels.”

See other recent news regarding: Travel News Asia, Star Alliance, Luggage, Baggage, Zurich, SITA, Airports