In these difficult industry times, lost and found departments are often under-staffed and often don’t have any real flexible way to add untrained people as the processes and applications are so specific and complex. Therefore, any small incident can easily create chaos to baggage services and take days to recover with frustrated staff facing angry customers.
BagAssist self-services online and kiosk advanced solutions for airlines and ground handlers includes:
- OnlineAHL (the online customised delayed baggage declaration)
- PaxAHL (the kiosk customised delayed baggage declaration)
- OnlineDelivery (the online baggage incident status solution with file updates and online delivery)
All of the above self-service modules can be integrated in the BagAssist suite, or as independent applications. As they are passenger touch-point, they can be configured / customised to your company branding for a consistent company image towards your passengers.
BagAssist module OnlineAHL
The major target of the OnlineAHL application is to support the staff during major incidents like snow, storms, volcanos, strikes or flight-related incidents like baggage containers not being loaded.
Through the administration module, the necessary tokens and customised documents are created so that passengers can leave the airport quickly and declare their baggage as missing by using the internet. But even in the absence of major issues, it has proven to be of a high added value for the staff in specific cases to release work / passenger pressure.
The application is available in the seven standard WorldTracer languages (English, French, German, Brazilian, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish) and all the texts can be modified using the BagAdmin (administration) module.
It is integrated with SITA WorldTracer web services and the necessary checks are made to prevent fraudulent declarations (token generation per airport / date or airport / flight / date, duplicate file verification, DCS or internal interface if applicable).
It can run in all current market browsers and is very easy to use, with help texts, help images and comprehensive error messages. The file reference is immediately provided to the passenger on the screen, with possible sending of email (with PIR, Pax docs and custom document) and / or SMS (with file reference).
For staff it can be used with a specific recall OnlineAHL file in the BagAssist application and print function (one file or for a list of files) for the custom documents. The token ID generation is simply made in BagAdmin with output documents printed in various languages that can be distributed to passengers.
The application is currently in use at Air France / KLM, Qantas, Swissport and Brussels Airlines.
BagAssist module PaxAHL
Another alternative to passenger queuing can be found in the PaxAHL application, which is the delayed bag passenger declaration using an airport kiosk.
The application has already been in use with some customers for more than three years, but it has been completely re-engineered in 2012 to be technically upgraded to more modern technology, with more configuration capabilities.
The application is very easy-to-use and intuitive for passengers used for years to similar process at check-in, and that are searching an alternative for leaving the airport quickly.
The application is currently in use at Swissport (that claims a usage rate of up to 20% for all cases in Geneva for example), Brussels Airlines, Billund Airport and Qantas.
A normal file creation takes less than three minutes and this time can even be reduced by pre-populating data by the passenger (2D bar-code read, giving passenger name, routing and eventually FFP number; bag tag number) or interfaces (DCS, frequent Flyer data), leaving the passenger to only validate the data, enter baggage information and eventually delivery information if different from his home address.
The application is kiosk independent, but special integration tests have been made with IER918 and NCR slim / thick models.
BagAssist module OnlineDelivery
The OnlineDelivery module is an online extension of the former IVR module (Interactive Voice Response) with enhanced capabilities due to its online technology, aiming the same goal being to filter unnecessary calls to staff by giving the passenger a way to follow-up his baggage incident status and eventually update the file when applicable.
The OnlineDelivery is also the platform that manages passenger contact updates when the file status changes (FWD, DR, delivery) by email and / or SMS. Passengers can view the file incident status and history, and update the contacts, delivery information (and even prepare the delivery within the airline restrictions when applicable) and the baggage content list with immediate amending of his file in WorldTracer.
The application is available in the seven WorldTracer languages and will be in production in its new technology upgrade by the beginning of October 2012 with Swissport as launching customer.