"DIA Luggage-system delays left Denver holding bag"

Saturday, February 26, 2005

Luggage-system delays left city holding bag
Airport opening was put off for 16 months as backup installed
By Kevin Flynn
The Denver (CO) Rocky Mountain News


The opening of Denver International Airport was delayed so long, and costs
increased so much, because its space-age baggage system couldn't be made to
work right. 

The city spent about $100 million more for construction and $341 million in
extra interest payments to try to get the automated baggage system working
and then to build an alternate system to take on what the automated system
couldn't handle. 

DIA was supposed to open Oct. 31, 1993. The actual opening date was Feb. 28,
1995. That's when United Airlines finally got the automated system working -
although for departing luggage only. 

Other airlines used the alternate system, with workers driving tugs and
carts through tunnels to get baggage to and from the planes. 

It's still that way today. 

United's automated "telecar" system puts one bag in each cart. The carts are
then propelled along miles of track. Radio modules on each car carry the
computer-coded destination information, signaling the system to throw
switches ahead and speed the carts along to their waiting planes. 

It hasn't always worked smoothly, but according to United Airlines spokesman
Jeff Green, "We've made improvements to the automated system over the years
to work out some of the bugs." 

Still, arriving bags and most bags that are transferred from plane to plane
are being shuttled in a more traditional and labor-intensive method of
manually handled carts. 

As it was planned from the beginning. 

In August 1990, city officials said the airport would open with a basic
tug-and-cart system with space set aside for a fully automated system later.
The city's own consultant said it would be impossible to provide an
automated system by the planned October 1993 opening. 

It wasn't until July 1991, however - two years after construction had begun
- that outgoing Mayor Federico Peņa finally reached an agreement with
United, as the major tenant, that significantly expanded the scope and costs
of the airport. As part of the agreement, United insisted on a fully
automated baggage sorting and handling system. 

Under the Wellington Webb administration, the city decided that if an
automated system was to be installed it should serve all airlines using DIA.


Such a system had never been used at an airport. But a prototype was
operating successfully in a Texas facility owned by BAE Automated Systems.
Both United and American Airlines backed it. 

But it needed to be built at DIA in just 26 months to keep the airport
construction on schedule. To complicate matters, as engineers acknowledged
in post-mortems on the issue, an unrealistic specification was set: the
system had to be able to move 1,000 bags a minute - a rate far in excess of
the expected load at DIA. 

At first, two of the four companies invited to bid on the project, including
BAE, declined. BAE said it would take four years to build. The other two
bids were rejected. 

United went back to the city in support of the BAE system. It then worked
out an agreement to give BAE priority access to work areas to speed
construction. The terminal already under construction was to get a new
basement level to hold all the tracks and conveyors. 

In practice, however, the deal never worked out that way. Among other
things, BAE found other contractors unwilling to let their schedules slip in
order to let the baggage system builders in. 

Then testing began - in front of television cameras. The conveyors shot
luggage onto the tracks only to be sliced and diced by the fast-moving
telecars. The problems were easily fixed - the testing was meant to uncover
just such glitches - but the videos remain in broadcast to this day. 

Finally, when the full system was turned on for testing, it didn't work. The
computers were overwhelmed with radio-transmitted input from the fast-moving
carts, causing a large number of bags to be delayed. 

In March 1993, Webb announced the first delay in the airport's opening, from
Oct. 31 until Dec. 19, because of the baggage system and other problems. In
mid-October, Webb again pushed back the opening to March 9, 1994. 

Just over a week before that date, Webb once again was forced under pressure
from the airlines to delay the opening until May 15. Fears over the baggage
system's readiness was the dominant reason. 

Finally, on May 2, in the face of uncertainties over whether the baggage
system would ever work, Webb announced an indefinite delay in the opening. 

That summer the city began installing the alternate system, which uses
automated sorting, but workers then haul the bags to the planes. 

The city handed over the BAE system to United, which was able to get it to
sort and deliver outbound bags only. 

Unused portions of the original system have been torn out and sold for
scrap.


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