China Southern Airlines is about to introduce electronic bag tags for some domestic flights.
China’s largest airline is introducing the electronic bag tags as an alternative to the traditional paper tag on some domestic flights.
BAGTAG is a digital reusable bag tag to replace single use paper tags. It connects passenger baggage to their smartphone.
From mid-August, China Southern passengers on domestic flights from Guangzhou’s Baiyun International Airport will be able to check in bags tagged with BAGTAG.
How it works
BAGTAG is a thing, a sort of block, with an e-paper display and RFID technology. It claims to be robust and weather resistant and that all data sent to BAGTAG is hardware encrypted.
Check-in is done on the airline’s mobile app and bags dropped off at airport bag-drop kiosks, the same as not using BAGTAG.
Currently, BAGTAG can be used on Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian flights.
Why use it?
Now that self tagging is widely used, passengers can save a lot of time at an airport by avoiding the self tagging there.
At a desk, passengers just leave it all to the agent and it takes about 30 seconds on average.
Self tagging increases the time and hassle for passengers.
With BAGTAG, passengers update the label for each flight.
The cost
British Airways – £80 from October 2019.
Other airlines have similar systems in place.
Jasper Quak, Managing Director of BAGTAG:
China is soon to be the largest aviation market in the world, therefore it makes perfect sense that we partner with China Southern Airlines, the largest Chinese airline, to introduce the Electronic Bag Tag concept.
China Southern Airlines’ has a great track record in digital innovation, and combined with our experience working with major carriers, makes us very confident this rollout will be the beginning of a great partnership.”
Ms Twinkle Li, Senior Director Product and Service for China Southern Airlines:
We are very proud to be the first airline in China to introduce electronic bag tags. Our top priority is always offering the best service to our passengers and we believe electronic bag tags are a big step forward. With this paperless solution, passengers can save significant time at the airport.
We firmly believe our partnership with BAGTAG will allow us to make this a success in China and internationally. The BAGTAG platform offers us a turnkey solution for electronic baggage tags that is very easy to integrate and works worldwide.”
N.B. Image credit: BAGTAG
