Bag tag
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Bag tags, also known as baggage tags, baggage checks or luggage tickets, have traditionally been used by airlines to route passenger luggage that is checked in to the final destination. The passenger stub is typically attached to the ticket envelope to aid the passenger in identifying their bag among many similar bags at the destination baggage carousel.
The carriers liability is restricted to published tariffs and international agreements.
[edit] International conventions
[edit] Warsaw Convention
The Warsaw Convention of 1929, specifically article 4, established the criteria for issuing a baggage check or luggage ticket.
This agreement also established limit of liability on checked baggage.
[edit] History of airline bag tags
At some point, the reinforced paper tags were introduced. They are designed to not detach easily during transport.
These were later changed to include a bar code. This would allow for automated sorting of the bags and reduce the number of misrouted, misplaced or delayed bags. The limitations of this technology were apparent at Denver International Airport when a fully automated cart-based system significantly delayed the airport's opening (United Airlines announced in August 2005 that the cart-based system at Denver International Airport was to be scrapped). While the inability to read reliably all bar-coded tags in the Denver installation was a part of the problem, it was one of several technical reasons for the delayed opening.
Nevertheless, automated sorting of hold baggage using laser scanner arrays - known as ATRs (automatic tag readers) - to read bar-coded bag tags is the norm at major international airports such as London's airports (Heathrow Airport, Gatwick Airport, Stansted Airport and Luton Airport), Paris' airports (Charles De Gaulle International Airport and Orly Airport), Madrid Barajas International Airport, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, Frankfurt International Airport, Munich Airport, Athens International Airport, Hong Kong International Airport, Singapore Changi Airport, Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Brussels National Airport, Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport and so on.
To solve the problem of some bar codes not being readable automatically due to poorly-printed, obscured, crumpled, scored or otherwise damaged bar-codes, some airlines have started trialling RFID chips imbedded in the tags. In one case in the USA, McCarran International Airport installed an RFID system throughout the airport. Hong Kong International Airport has also installed an RFID system. The airline industry's association IATA is trying to convince airlines and airports to use RFID tagging but thus far use has been negligible, primarily due to the costs involved both in terms of tags and in terms of the additional airport infrastructure required. Furthermore, at hub airports where transfer baggage is a significant percentage of the overall number of baggage, the benefit of the airport's investment in RFID readers is negated for transfer baggage arriving from airports that do not insert RFID chips in the bag tags.
The term 'licence plate' (using UK spelling) is the official term used by IATA, commercial airlines (a.k.a. carriers) and airports for the 10-digit numeric code on a bag tag issued by a carrier or handling agent at check-in. The licence plate is normally printed on the carrier tag in bar-code form and in human-readable form, as defined in IATA Resolution 740. Each digit in a licence plate has a specific meaning. Contrary to popular belief, the flight number is not encoded in the licence plate on the carrier tag: the licence plate is an index number linking a bag to an associated message sent by a carrier's Departure Control System to an airport's Baggage Handling System. It is the message that contains the flight details, thus enabling an automated Baggage Handling System to sort a bag automatically once it has scanned the bar-code on the carrier tag. Thus two things are essential for automated sorting of baggage: a carrier tag with a bar-coded licence plate, plus a corresponding message ('Baggage Source Message', or BSM for short) from a carrier's Departure Control System. Note that the human-readable licence plate may contain a 2-character IATA carrier code instead of an IATA 3-digit carrier code, e.g. SQ728359 instead of 0618728359, but the bar-code will always be for the full 10 digits (0618728359 in the example - 618 and SQ being, respectively, the IATA 3-digit code and IATA 2-character code for Singapore Airlines). The first digit of a 10-digit licence plate is not part of the carrier code; it can be in the range '0' to '9', each value having a specific meaning in the industry.
