Passengers using the Fly Delta app have begun receiving push
notifications on the status of their checked bags, the carrier said Wednesday.
The notices tell customers in real time when their bags have
been loaded onto a plane and when they are arriving at the baggage carousel.
The new service is a result of the $50 million systemwide
transition to radio frequency identification (RFID) bag tracking that Delta has
undertaken this year.
Delta is the first airline to employee RFID tracking across
its network. It says that the system, in which radio frequencies are used to
track bags instead of the more common optical bar scanners, reduces bag-handling
errors by 25%.
Delta now prints RFID tags at all 344 airports in which it
operates worldwide.
The tags appear similar to those used in a standard barcode
system. But within each RFID tag is a small, embedded chip and a radio antenna.