Thanks to a Datalogic Automation and Sita solution, the airport of Fiumicino – Rome – has greatly decreased the problem of the baggage lost and of the consequential costs.
The airport “Leonardo da Vinci” of Fiumicino – Rome, the largest italian port with four terminals and more than 33 Million passengers/year, in a phase of expansion and modernization and wanting to increase the level of passengers service, has developed a project on the traceability of baggage from the aircraft’s hold of to the owners.
Baggage handling is one of the major problem, both for the inconvenience caused to passengers, and for the economic and image impact on airlines and airports.
Globally, in 2009 were diverted to wrong destinations about 25 Million baggage and have been lost 0.4 baggage per 1.000 passengers, with a loss for the airline Industry of 2.5 Billion dollars.
The 2009 data shows an improvement on previous years’ statistics, demonstrating that a performing BHS (Baggage Handling System) and a efficient service management can drastically reduce economic losses and improve the passenger service.
Rome Airports (ADR) has decided to solve the problem in collaboration with SITA as prime contractor and provider of software infrastructures and Datalogic Automation as a supplier of automatic bar code readers with fixed location.
The project involves the installation of a reading station for each entry and exit points of the baggage into the BHS System of all terminals, the collection of the useful datas in order to monitor the handling time from the aircraft hold to the owner.
The management of collected datas, together with flights and airport stopover is a delicate and difficult operation: for this reason, Rome Airports (ADR) was entrusted to Sita, a cooperative with around 550 members among airlines, airport companies and services. Present in 220 countries, Sita has got a wide range of applications, more than baggage handling, includes communication services, operations for the airline passengers and for airports, cargo activities, flight operations and air-ground communications.
Thanks to a historic relationship with ADR, as well as following a similar experience at the airport of Barcelona (Spain), Sita confirmed Datalogic Automation as a supplier of automatic reading system.
Datalogic Automation has supplied thirty reading omnidirectional tunnels on 270° of the Iata Barcone, for a total of nearly 200 laser scanner 8000 and thirty SC6000 controllers.
The storage location
A landing of a plane correspond to a retrieval procedure from the aircraft hold (ULD) and individual baggage, as well as the transport to the loading bays of the BHS System. Handlers provide with loading luggage in the single conveyor system. For each load position corresponds to a reading station that records the passage of each package.
The baggage following a default location in the BHS system will then be routed to the right refund tape to passengers or to the transit management system and before exiting will be reread by a tunnel. The comparison between the input and output data will monitor the discharge time from a aircraft and cargo and baggage sorting system performance.
The reading tunnel have been fitted to existing conveyors that did not provide an identification system: the stations were then customized in regard to the standard versions, in order to meet the constraints of space, then were used together with DS8100A and DX8200A, 90° reflection mirror and contact reading ones.
Datalogic Automation consolidates its position in the Italian Airport market in which it’s present as supplier of the major airports, from Milan to Bergamo and Turin, Venice, Pisa and Palermo.”
Datalogic products involved in the project
Patented technologies, innovation and best performance are the main features of the scanners 8000 (DS8100A e DX8200A) series, the most powerful barcode readers on the market. Strong by knowledge and experience gained from hundreds of installations, Datalogic Automation has developed a compact and integrated solution based on various patents such as ACR (Auto reconstruction code) 4th generation that achieves to obtain the full code from partial scans, ASTRA™ (Automatically SwiTched Reading Area), which allows the broadest depth of field without mechanical parts for auto-focus and PackTrack™, which ensure the right allocation of the code, even when the objects to be identified are very close. The SC6000 controller meets all requirements in the field of airport logistic applications and is suitable for collecting data from Datalogic readers on a dedicated bus at 1.25 Mb/sec and to interface with the host via Ethernet.
Finally, the SW Websentinel allows the Diagnostic and Statistical monitoring even remotely through a browser of each reading station and all its components.
