International airlines operating to and from Australia have signed a five-year contract renewal worth more than AU$25m ($20m) with Unisys Australia to continue to provide a baggage reconciliation system (BRS) for 44 international airlines operating from the eight Australian international airports at Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Cairns, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin and the Gold Coast.
The Board of Airline Representatives Australia (BARA), an industry representative organisation for airlines, manages the engagement with Unisys on behalf of the airlines. Unisys has reportedly worked with BARA since 2004 to provide the baggage reconciliation system that links passengers with their bags, tracking both as they move through the system.
Warren Bennett, executive director, Board of Airline Representatives Australia, said: “The Unisys baggage reconciliation system assists our member airlines to collectively meet compulsory security requirements for baggage handling. What’s more, it does so via an efficient, standardised process to prevent delays to passenger processing or tight flight schedules, two things that we know are essential for air-travel customer satisfaction.”
According to Unisys, when passengers check in, each bag receives a barcode, which is then scanned and reconciled with a passenger record before it can be loaded onto the aircraft. As the airline has a record of the baggage loading order, bags can be identified and recovered if passengers fail to board. This process prevents take-off with a mismatch of passengers, crew and baggage.
Unisys said that the baggage reconciliation system helps airlines comply with the Aviation Security Act’s Triple A (account and authorise) regulations relating to baggage handling, which are mandated by the Commonwealth Government’s Office of Transport Security.
