PASSENGERS taking flights arriving at or departing from Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport can trace their luggage with the official tracking system that recently came online, a source from the airport said.

While waiting for their departures, passengers can use their mobile phones to check the status of their luggage. For arriving passengers, they can check the location of their luggage and expected time to claim their bags.

As one of the airports that have piloted the luggage tracing system, Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport applied the RFID-based system on the flights between Shenzhen and Shanghai operated by China Eastern Airlines and Shanghai Airlines in 2019.

The RFID (radio-frequency identification) label that is tagged to the luggage of passengers enables the airport ground service and passengers to trace the luggage in real time. The use of the tracing system has enabled Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport to meet the requirement set by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) that all airports with a passenger throughput of 10 million or more to use the tracing system by the end of 2021.

After the service is officially launched, it will first be used on the domestic flights of airlines whose ground service is provided by Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport, and then it will be expanded to other airlines that operate their own ground services at the airport.

Passengers can log on to the mini-program of Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport and check their luggage through scanning the luggage label barcodes or inputting the luggage numbers.

The airport has installed 131 sets of RFID data collection devices and 200 RFID luggage label printing machines covering the entire process of luggage transportation. The airport handles about 20,000 pieces of luggage a day. Tests show the data collection by RFID labels has reached 92 percent, higher than the CAAC’s requirement of 90 percent. (Han Ximin)