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Monday, December 3, 2007 Indianapolis International Airport
Midfield Terminal Easy
in, easy out New
luggage conveyors use electronic 'eyes' to track bags, speeding check-in and
pickup
By Zach Dunkin The
Indianapolis (IN) Star Passengers at the new Indianapolis International Airport terminal
should be able to check their bags a little later, claim them a lot sooner upon
arrival and worry less about losing them, thanks to a new luggage sorting
system that keeps things simple.
The system, featuring about two miles of conveyors, promises to
get the job done by moving about 65 bags a minute when the midfield terminal opens
a year from now, compared with fewer than 40 a minute now. It will track the
bags' journey with thousands of "eyes," tiny photo cells embedded in
the sides of the conveyor belts. The $25.6 million system will also feature: Nine in-line screening machines that will mean far less handling
of bags by security personnel. Curbside conveyors where passengers can check their bags before
entering the terminal. A separate conveyor line to handle suspicious luggage so everyone
else's bags are not delayed. Most of the system is deliberately low-tech. "We're not using any components or using any unproven
technology that haven't been installed in at least 50 other airports around the
world. That's where we want to be," said Richard V. Potosnak, president of
Aviation Capital Management, which is installing the system. After travel delays, passengers' second-biggest complaint is lost
and mishandled luggage. Potosnak, a former manager at Midfield Airport in Pittsburgh,
blames the machinery more than anything else. "We're using a simpler tracking system, which we think will
reduce the risk of lost luggage, making the passenger happier and the airline
more efficient," he said. Now, a significant percentage of bags have to be manually handled
and loaded by a Transportation Security Administration agent. Bags are taken
off a delivery belt, carried to a TSA screening machine, cleared by the machine
and then turned back over to the airline. "A vast majority of that goes away with this new
system," said David Kane, federal security director for the TSA in
Indiana. "This equipment will transfer it, screen it and transfer it to
the airlines." The only baggage the TSA will have to handle are pieces that fail
to clear the electronic scanners. The screening equipment was scheduled to be
delivered to the airport today. Assuming a bag clears security and is not directed to TSA agents
for a physical inspection, the new system should take only three minutes to
move a piece of luggage from ticketing to loading. That should mean fewer late-arriving passengers stuck at the gate. "If the airlines have to deny a customer because they're
afraid the luggage can't get loaded on time, it becomes problematic,"
Potosnak said. "It's a seat that's now empty and they can never fill
again, and it's lost revenue." The tracking photo cells in the new system should help end
instances where a misread tag can leave luggage circulating for hours before
someone notices it isn't going anywhere. "Essentially, by knowing the speeds of the conveyors and
looking through these imaginary windows, we can keep track of when a bag passed
a certain point and when it should pass the next photo cell all the way through
the system," Potosnak said. For baggage coming off a plane, Potosnak hopes to trim the time
spent by passengers collecting their bags with a system that uses six luggage
claim devices, plus two for oversized luggage, directly fed by a conveyor. It should take no more than two to three minutes from the time the
bag gets to the conveyor to when it passes through to the baggage claim
carousel. There's one other important reason the airport chose this system:
its ability to grow as demand grows. "With its built-in expandability, we can handle the luggage needs
for decades and millions more passengers with this system," project
director John J. Kish said of the new terminal. The new baggage system can handle up to 7.6 million passengers a
year, Potosnak said. The annual passenger total projected for when the new
terminal opens is about 4.5 million. Midfield Airport in Pittsburgh installed a similar system nearly
three years ago. "From a customer-service perspective, it is a significantly
improved service to the passengers, and I think people forget that's the
business we are in: the service business," said Brad Penrod, director of
the airport. "You get the improved security in a speeded-up process." | |||||||
