Finding Fault With Qantas' RFID Baggage Tracking System

lukehopewell1 writes "Australian airline giant Qantas has implemented new baggage tags powered by RFID technology. The RFID tag is encoded with the information on a passenger's boarding pass when placed in a bag drop area, and is summarily sent to its destination. But is it any good? ZDNet Australia tested the new systems and found that the system sadly had no intention of sending our cargo."

poor test

[Zebai]

This seemed like a poor test to me, they tested a really small hand bag on a luggage system that normally handles well...luggage. Why not test it with suitcase or duffel bag?

Re:TL;DL

[ozmanjusri]

The automated checkin system has been in place in Perth for a while and works smoothly enough for experienced travelers. The baggage scanner/conveyor kiosks do seem a bit temperamental, but if one doesn't work, I just move to the next.

Normally, if the RFID part fails, the barcode scanner in the top can pick up the code on the back of the tag, so I'd say the guys in the video might have had a better experience if they'd just put an "Out of Service" tag on the broken kiosk and moved to the next one.

The biggest problem I've seen is that there's not enough information telling people new to the system what to do. Qantas put a number of staff around the kiosks to help, but better signs and directions would have been much smarter.