As you read this, a piece of luggage—not one belonging to an actual traveler, but a piece of test luggage—may be airborne, having gone aloft on a test flight operated by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The company is hosting the first stage of a proof-of-concept test for the eTag and eTrack, two electronic luggage tags developed by FastTrack Co., a startup based in London and Amsterdam. The devices will allow passengers to use their smartphones to track their bags.
If you were a passenger on a US Airways flight back in 2007, this may have sounded like music to your ears. That year, the airline mishandled the checked baggage of roughly one out of every 118 passengers. In fact, 2007 marked a low point in baggage handling across airlines, with the U.S. Department of Transportation data showing that 7.03 out of every 1,000 passengers experienced problems with checked bags that year. But thanks to airlines’ investments in technology and a drop in bag volume due to luggage check-in fees, that figure improved by more than 50 percent by 2013. US Airways saw a 70 percent reduction in mishandled bags.
That improvement begs the question: Do flyers need a better way to track their bags? And, if so, will they pay for it? David van Hoytema, FastTrack’s CFO and co-founder, answers both with a resounding yes.
“People are stressed about their bags,” van Hoytema says. “When people drop off a bag, they stare at it as it goes down the conveyor belt. When they are waiting for the bags upon arrival, they crowd in right by the luggage shoot.” He cites research from travel industry consultancy CWT Solutions Group, which showed that 80 percent of travelers express concern over losing their bags as their chief worry about air travel.
For the current tests, Air France-KLM is serving as a host, helping FastTrack engineers to ensure that the devices’ wireless technology works as it should and in compliance with national regulations. The governing body that regulates wireless technology used on commercial flights in Europe is the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). “Other regions and countries have similar bodies which tend to follow EASA or FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] regulations. “We take the approach that if we conform to the strictest rules—those of the EASA—we will conform to other regions as well,” van Hoytema says.
The eTrack device, which contains a subscriber identity module (SIM) card—used to provide cellular connectivity so that the device can communicate with FastTrack software hosted in the cloud—and a GPS receiver, is placed inside a piece of checked luggage. Since it remains inaccessible during flight, the device must automatically power down before flight and power back up once the plane has landed, in accordance with local regulations, in order to allow users to check the location of their eTrack devices via a smartphone app (once they are able to power up their phones). The expectation is that if bags fail to appear at the pick-up carousel in a timely manner, users would then be able to connect to the airline’s customer service department directly via a FastTrack app. But with the hardware itself still in the testing phase, app development is not yet complete.
Van Hoytema says a patent is pending on the algorithm that accomplishes this power cycling, and would only explain it generally, saying it is accomplished by using a “combination of airport signals in and around the airport and flight information data.”
The current test flights that Air France-KLM is hosting are vetting this process. Once these tests are complete, FastTrack will move into a second series of tests, this time on commercial flights, but likely involving airline employees rather than passengers. Dutch telecom KPN is providing cellular connectivity for these proof-of-concept tests, and Samsonite is also involved, as a luggage sponsor.
Once the pilot testing is complete, Air France-KLM plans to offer eTag and eTrack devices to members of its frequent-flier club, Flying Blue.
The eTag, which includes a rugged plastic locking loop by which it is affixed to a piece of luggage, is meant to replace the paper tags currently in use. The tag can be used on its own or in combination with the eTrack device.
“The eTag uses Bluetooth Low Energy and RFID,” van Hoytema explains, “and you can write to it in two ways.” In either case, hosted FastTrack software acts as a middleman, collecting the appropriate flight data from the airline after a passenger checks in. If that traveler is using both the eTrack and the eTag, the FastTrack software will transmit the flight data and a luggage bar code to the eTrack via a cellular connection, and the eTrack will then send the luggage tag data to the eTag via a Bluetooth module. The eTag will display the bar code and also write the bar-code data to the RFID tag embedded within. If the eTrack isn’t used, the traveler could call up the flight data and luggage bar code through the FastTrack app and forward that information to the eTag via a Bluetooth connection.
Power demands for the eTag are very low, according to van Hoytema, and its battery should last throughout the tag’s lifetime. The battery in the eTrack will need to be recharged after six to 10 flights, he estimates.
FastTrack is already offering the eTrack, which is being sold under the brand Eviate. The device can be pre-ordered via the Eviate website, along with four different subscription levels, starting at €99 ($112) for the device and two free months of cellular connectivity. In time, van Hoytema says, FastTrack intends to roll out the eTrack and eTag services with other airlines, in addition to Air France-KLM.
Ancillary Benefits
According to FastTrack, the eTrack could also serve as a new customer touch point for airlines and airports. This is yet to be developed, van Hoytema notes, but airlines or airports could leverage the FastTrack app to send special notifications—directions to a frequent flier lounge, for example, or a special offer from an airport concessionaire—based on a passenger’s location, as determined by an airport’s beacon network triggering location data from that individual’s smartphone.
As an added security feature, a light sensor embedded in the eTrack will log when and where the luggage is opened. The FastTrack software can then forward this information to the passenger via the app.
Some people may prefer just to use the eTag to make checking a bag in a simpler process, whereas others might prefer to know where their bags are with as much granularity as possible. “We don’t yet know which will be the killer app,” van Hoytema states.