This week I was present at a meeting at the offices of Bagdrop. Bagdrop is a company that developed the first fully autonomous baggage drop off units.

 

 It was very informational to hear Edwin Sneekes, CEO and founder to talk about the complexity such systems have to deal with to ensure a succesfull bagage drop off: detection against rolling materials (who is checking in a bowling ball?), live stock (is the bag barking?), and playfull children. Additionally it is important to have the luggage weighed on a certified scale, as more and more airlines are considering excess-baggage fee as a part of their revenue model.

 

With the client handling the drop off of the bags themselves, there is no more negotiation on potential overweight fees. The speeds up the process but requires special business rules how to deal with frequent flyers. However, also new issues arise: for example, how to position correctly the bag on the belt in the machine? How to apply the baggage labels correctly. For the latter, Bagdrop is now introducing a magic new type of label that only sticks where and when 2 sticky sides meet. This way, the customer can more easily apply the tags, and tags are less torn off, as they can't stick on the belt anymore.

 

This "contact moment at the airport" and the availability of a payment module make it a perfect place for other cross selling as well. The self-service and home-print trends will only increase and not before long the bagage drop off machine will be the only physical touch point with the airline.

 

In the past year, BagDrop has piloted the machines together with KLM and Schiphol, and the system and design have improved as a result of the pilot. Self service bagage drop off creates additional revenue streams and decreases the cost of non-performance (of untagged bags, jammed baggage belts,etc).

 

At this moment, a multi-unit production rollout is in progress at Schiphol Airport.