What happens to hold baggage after checking in at Schiphol Airport?
If you're on the road for a business trip (or for a well-deserved vacation), then we all want our luggage to arrive at its destination at the right location, but of course also without damage. An airplane is only on the ground for a short period of time and often takes off again soon after landing, packed and loaded.
Within this short period of time that the plane is on the ground, a lot has to happen to get the plane back on the ground. One of the biggest challenges is getting all the luggage passengers are carrying on board. How does an airport like Schiphol make sure that all those thousands of suitcases and other hold baggage pieces get to the right destination? In this article, we will show you the journey your hold baggage takes at an airport.
Registration of checked baggage
The moment you check in your suitcase at the check-in desk or at a self-service baggage drop-off, the long journey begins for your suitcase. At the check-in desk or self-service baggage drop-off, a label with a barcode is attached to the suitcase. This small bar-coded label contains all the information relevant to the suitcase's journey. For example, this label contains the flight number, destination and flight date. The label also contains an additional chip, this way the suitcase's entire route within the process can be monitored.
In this video you can see what happens to your suitcase once you have dropped it off at the airport:
What does a suitcase go through?
At Schiphol Airport, as well as at other modern airports, there are hundreds of kilometers of conveyor belts to process all suitcases. Your own suitcase certainly does not always travel this entire route, but makes the correct and shortest route to get to the plane. At Schiphol Airport, all these baggage belts run underground. While traveling its route over the baggage belts, a suitcase goes through a lot. For example, the suitcase will be screened by security personnel or machines. During the entire route across the conveyor belts, the airport monitors the suitcase by that little label. This way, they almost always know where your suitcase is.
In some cases, the airport first stores a suitcase in a buffer, which can be seen as a kind of "suitcase hotel. Here, suitcases are stored that do not yet have to go through the entire process, for example, because you checked in too early or if a plane is seriously delayed. In this way, the system automatically creates space for suitcases that do need to get to the plane as quickly as possible.
People's Work
Despite sophisticated automated systems, some of the processing of suitcases remains human work. Your suitcase will be checked for security not only by machines but also by people. Sometimes your suitcase will lose its data and then someone will make sure it gets back to the right place in the system. Ultimately, a suitcase also has to go from the system to the plane and this is and will remain human work for now. Even when you arrive at your destination after a flight, the suitcase will have to be removed from the plane by people. From then on, the suitcase will go on another great journey. In the video below, you can see what the suitcase endures before it reaches its owner again.
See the process in 3D
Would you like to take a ride through Schiphol's giant baggage system? In the video below, you can experience the process of a suitcase for yourself. The footage was taken with a 3D camera mounted on a suitcase in the baggage area.
Error rate
Despite all the technology and all the people doing their best every day to get all the suitcases to the right destination, sometimes things go wrong. Most suitcases that are checked in arrive at their destination right the first time. Less than 1% of suitcases sometimes go wrong and only 0.5% have bigger problems. With these suitcases, the owner cannot always be identified immediately. Therefore, it is always wise to put a sticker on the suitcase with your address and any destination information. Try to put as few loose strings and frills on a suitcase as possible, this increases the chances of something going wrong!
Update: This blog first appeared on Dec. 21, 2018 and was updated with new information on Jan. 25, 2022.
Sources consulted:
