Air France and KLM, major European airlines part of the Air France / KLM holding, have jointly selected the BagAssist product
to implement in the first phase of Paris Charles-de-Gaulle and Amsterdam Schipol airports.
This strategic choice will support Air France and KLM to strengthen their active role in solving baggage incident in a quick and professional way. The production cut-over in Paris successfully happened on target (end of January 2007) for Air France, the cut-over for KLM being planned by end of March 2007
Air France and KLM and Sky Assist have entered agreements for the implementation of the BagAssist state-of-the-art, web-based, thin client, automated baggage-handling software solution at lost and found departments, fully covering the primary baggage tracing processes of the first five days of a baggage incident.
The BagAssist suite of products, unique in the market place, simplifies daily tasks to improve productivity. It is flexible and raises service quality for all handled airlines and passengers. Air France and KLM are going one step forward compared to existing BagAssist customers by implementing new high-productivity interfaces to automatically retrieve passenger full contact (for frequent flyer passenger) and complete routing based on baggage tag numbers. The automation of major functions processing and avoidance of multiple data entries are an integral part of BagAssist productivity and quality increase.
Baggage handling has generally been viewed as an end-of-chain and cost only department. However with independent handling companies taking an ever increasing share of the baggage handling market, it has become crucial for these companies to differentiate themselves from competitors by delivering outstanding quality service to passengers and raising quality standards at a time when they are addressing greater airport security requirements.
The selection and deployment of BagAssist by Air France and KLM management is a strategic decision that will not only enable delivery of improved services but will deliver a positive return on investment.
BagAssist manages lost and found baggage processes as well as passenger status enquiries. It increases ground-staff productivity and helps drive down unit costs. BagAssist delivers improved service quality to handled airlines and passengers looking to be reunited with their mishandled baggage as soon as possible.
Every day, thousands of passenger bags are mishandled by the airline industry. Their owners want to be reunited with their bags quickly and expect their problems to be addressed as efficiently as possible, whether by airport authorities, ground handlers or airline representatives. To recover passenger loyalty at this difficult time, it is crucial that resources work rapidly and in a flexible way, to meet passenger demands. BagAssist supports the staff in order to easily meet the passenger expectations.
For the first time, airport kiosks will be implemented in 2007 in arrival services, offering an alternative to the passenger for declaring the baggage incident himself. This kind of service has been for years restricted to departure only.
BagAssist, deployable as a web-based application, is a great leap forward in the area of mishandled baggage and, in addition to increasing ground staff productivity, it delivers real-time management information and helps reduce the costs associated with traditional telecommunication networks.
BagAssist, SkyAssist’s vanguard solution is integrated with SITA’s WorldTracer, the worldwide standard for the tracing and recovery of lost luggage. It also automates processes for the follow-up of lost and found baggage. BagAssist automatically produces all the required documents for both passengers and agents and manages all information relating to flights, handling contracts, and delivery agreements, etc.
With its intuitive, interactive and friendly graphical user interface working from an Internet browser, it is very easy to learn and provides immediate access to a centralized database.
“Thanks to BagAssist, we now offer handling companies, airports and airlines a baggage solution based on their current needs and processes”, explains Luc Trentels, founder and general manager of SkyAssist. “Our open systems approach, through the internet, and our philosophy that aims for simplicity and integration, allows our customers to save on the high costs of developing tools themselves and using traditional networks. The ease of use of BagAssist also reduces the learning process for ground staff while delivering an immediate increase in productivity. We are confident that these benefits will ensure many other companies in the industry will soon join our customer community.”