Instead of the annoying buzzer and flashing light that announces the arrival of bags at some airports, the newly redesigned bag carousels at MSP airport send up the alert with nature sounds and a light show.
We’re making this the first nomination for Airport Amenity of the Week.
Feast your eyes on one of our newly redesigned baggage carousels!
Soothing nature sounds & a rippling light show announce that your bags are on the way. The design also offers more square footage and front-facing space — perfect for social distancing. #TravelConfidentlypic.twitter.com/OX4cP8r5gg
Our second nomination for Airport Amenity of the Week is this high-tech hand-washing station Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) installed to encourage travelers to wash their hands and “scrub away germs in 12 seconds flat!”
🎶You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out…🎶
As part of our #SafeTravels program, an airport first-of-its-kind high-tech hand washing station is being installed near our Landside train platform to scrub away germs in 12 seconds flat! pic.twitter.com/RNbeHoNCO8
Pete Buttigieg, who has been named transportation secretary nominee by President-elect Joe Biden, put a spotlight on O’Hare International Airport (ORD) during his formal introduction on Wednesday.
During the event, Buttigieg noted that he proposed to his husband, Chasten, at O’Hare. “Don’t let anybody tell you that O’Hare isn’t romantic,” he said.
Avgeeks know that.
So does United Airlines, which sent out a tweet identifying the engagement gate.
Heading to a warm-weather spot for vacation? Lucky you!
You’ll need your winter coat when you go to the airport and when you come home from your trip.
But you probably don’t need that coat at the beach.
That’s why we love the new coat check amenity at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport (MKE) that lets travelers check their coats at the recently opened Summerfest Marketplace, located pre-security in the airport’s concession mall.
“Heavy winter coats can take up a lot of space
in luggage. This new option allows travelers to wear their coats to the
airport, leave them with a friendly attendant in the Summerfest Marketplace,
and then claim them after landing back here at MKE.,” Airport Director Brian
Dranzik
Coat check service is $2 a day, with a maximum
charge of ten dollars.
MKE coat check service is great. And wins this week’s Airport Amenity of the Week award. But it isn’t the first airport to offer this service.
Frankfurt Airport offers a winter
coat storage service from October through April for just €0.50 a day in Terminal 1, Concourse B.
And Korean
Air offers a coat storage service at both Incheon International Airport
(Terminal 2) and Gimhae (Busan) International Airport from December through February.
The first five days are complimentary, after that there’s a charge of about $2
a day.
And back in 2014, there was a coat check service for a short while in the JetBlue terminal at JFK.
Here’s a great new airport service and a candidate – already – for Airport Amenity of the Week:
Baggage Nanny, an on-demand baggage pickup, storage and delivery service, is now operating at San Diego International Airport.
The company plans to expand its service to other airports soon.
The service addresses the problem of what to do with your luggage when you land at an airport but can’t yet check into your hotel and – on the other end – what to do with your luggage once you check out of your hotel and head back to the airport.
Through Baggage Nanny’s website, travelers arriving at an airport can make a reservation to drop off their bags at a kiosk in the terminal.
Baggage Nanny will hold onto that bag and then deliver it to the traveler’s hotel or another address in town at a specified time. Baggage Nanny will also pick up bags and store them at the requested terminal for the traveler ahead of their departure.
The cost: $20 for storage, no matter what size/weight and includes delivery within a 15 mile radius. Extra charges apply for destinations beyond the 15 mile radius.
Right now, Baggage Nanny has a kiosk in Terminal 1 at the San Diego airport. The plan is to expand to Terminal 2 as well and to additional airports, including Portland International Airport, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Nashville International Airport, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
My feature this week for CNBC details two good-for-travelers resolutions voted in recently during the Annual General Assembly of the International Air Transport Association.
One deals with a way to better track baggage. The other promises that the global airline industry will ease barriers for passengers who have disabilities.
Here’s a slightly different version of the posted story:
Airlines spend lots of time, energy and money competing against each other for your travel dollar and loyalty, even though high fares and excessive fees often make it seem like they’re in cahoots to make sure your journey is a frustrating, expensive nightmare.
But
sometimes the industry works together to takes global action in your favor.
At the recent Annual General Meeting
of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the industry trade group
passed a handful of resolutions aimed at making the passenger experience better
for everyone.
Two of the resolutions that might make
a noticeable difference on your next flight, and on flights into the future, address
bag tracking and accessibility for people with disabilities.
Better baggage tracking. Fewer lost
bags.
Most frequent travelers can share a
story or two about a checked bag that got mangled, arrived days late or went
missing.
But while passenger numbers soared 64%
between 2007 and 2017, information technology company SITA found that the bag mishandling rate per thousand of
passengers fell
by 70.5%.
In 2018, 4.36 billion travelers checked in more than 4.27
billion bags.
“More bags makes things more challenging,”
notes Peter Drummond, SITA’s Director of Baggage, and while “Everyone across
the industry needs to look beyond the process and technology improvements made
in the past decade and adopt the latest technology such as tracking to make the
next big cut in the rate of mishandled bags.”
Right now, most airlines use bar code
technology to track bags through their journey. But some airlines, such as
Delta, have switched to RFID (radio frequency identification) tracking,
a form of wireless communication used to track objects with an embedded RFID
chip.
IATA considers RFID tracking to be a more
cost-efficient method to achieve the industry’s target of 100% bag tracking.
And at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) adopted
a resolution supporting the global deployment of Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) for baggage tracking.
“Passengers want to arrive with their
bags. And on the rare occasion when that does not happen, they want to know
exactly where their bag is,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General
and CEO, “Deploying RFID and adopting modern baggage messaging standards will
help us to cut mishandlings by a quarter and recover bags that are mishandled
more quickly.”
While fewer
lost bags will make airline customer happy, the push for RFID tracking move
isn’t entirely altruistic.
While the
industry has already seen a 46.2% cut in the annual cost of baggage mishandling
due to better tracking, IATA estimates industry-wide adoption of RFID bag
tracking will see a return on investment of over $3 billion to the industry.
Smoother travel for passengers with disabilities
1 billion people – 15% of the world’s population – live with
some form of disability.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says this number is
increasing due to aging populations, the spread of chronic diseases, better
measurement tools and refinements in the definition of what constitutes a
disability.
ODO notes that since these individuals typically travel with one or two other adults, the economic impact is at least doubled, to $34.6 billion.
But air travel poses a myriad of challenges for people with disabilities.
For example, between December 4 and December 31, 2018 (the
first month the Department of Transportation required airlines to track this
category) major
U.S. carriers mishandled more than 700 wheelchairs and scooters, more than
2% of the 32,229 mobility devices loaded on airplanes.
“That’s 25 people a day who may have been stranded, unable
to work or participate in a family activity,” explains Chris Wood of Flying Disabled.
Noting that improving the air travel experience for people
with disabilities is not only “the right thing to do,” but good for business,
IATA also passed
a resolution committing airlines worldwide to ensuring that passengers with
disabilities have access to safe, reliable and dignified travel.
The industry trade group said its aim is to change the focus “from disability to accessibility and
inclusion” by bringing the travel sector together with governments to “harmonize
regulations and provide the clarity and global consistency that passengers
expect.”
The resolution
has the ability to enhance the passenger experience not only for people who
currently have disabilities, but also for those in years to come, said Eric
Lipp, Founder and Executive Director of Open Doors Organization.
“Most importantly,”
said Lipp, “This is the first time IATA has recognized this on an international
level. And this is in good timing with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities. Globally
the time is right.”