Putting passengers together with the right baggage is everyday work for Auckland-based baggage and materials handling specialists BCS Group. The kiwi innovator is the smart behind-the-scenes player responsible for Air New Zealand’s new domestic departures system recently launched at Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington airports.
The new self-service approach, designed to remove queuing by speeding up the check-in and boarding process, sees banks of up to 40 check-in kiosks replace the traditional check-ins at each of the airports. The kiosks allow customers to check in bags and print boarding passes and bag tags. Passengers then proceed to a self-drop conveyor belt which then transports their bags airside where Airflow software reconciles the passengers, bags and intended flight. The new process has already reduced peak queuing times from 10min-15min to less than 2min, greatly enhancing the domestic travel experience for Air NZ customers.
Air NZ selected BCS and its Airflow software based on its proven track record at over 20 airports in Australia and worldwide, as well as its reputation for excellence in software engineering and support. For each flight, BCS Airflow software accepts or rejects bags based on certain business rules and directs further bag processing accordingly. All bags are traced through the baggage handling system by collecting information every step of the way. All information gathered by Airflow, including automatically measured bag weights, is then relayed to Air New Zealand’s departure control system to ensure that passengers, bags and flights are reconciled correctly.
Air New Zealand general manager, Short Haul Airlines, Bruce Parton says, “We expect the changes to be very appealing, particularly to business travellers. We started working on this project 12 months ago to create and deliver a new experience that would allow our customers to move quickly and seamlessly through domestic airports. Our goal was to get rid of frustrating queues, cut customer waiting time and make checking in and boarding as quick and easy as possible.”
BCS CEO Patrick Teo commented, “This was certainly one of the most detailed implementations of Airflow done anywhere in the world and Air NZ is at the cutting edge of refining their business processes to improve the customer experience, and BCS is pleased to have been selected as one of their key partners to enable this revolution.”
It is anticipated that Wellington will be operational in early December with major regional ports receiving smaller versions over the course of next year.
Twitter