Streamline Airline Baggage Tracking with Automatic Tag Reading

​​As luggage travels long distances through airports and between planes, tags suffer from smudges, scratches, rips, and wrinkles. Read failure also stems from misplacement, poor printing, conveyor bottlenecks, syncing delays, and torn or wrinkled barcodes. An unread tag reroutes the bag to a manual-encoding process, adding time, manpower, and costs, while increasing the likelihood of lost luggage, security risks, and frustrated travelers.  

​IATA Resolution 753 requires member airlines to track baggage at load, transfer, and arrival, with each handling further compromising tag quality. Along with the slower adoption of RFID, all this makes high-performance scanning solutions key for reliable baggage tracking and delivery. 

The sheer volume of activity at airports presents many challenges that can be addressed by improved barcode scanning. Fewer unread codes mean fewer missed flights, better baggage handling, reduced manual encoding, and higher customer satisfaction. But traditional laser scanners can’t always handle damaged or low-contrast tags, especially when bags arrive at odd angles or at high speed.  

With high-speed automated tag reading (ATR) tunnel systems powered by highly accurate image-based barcode readers, system operators can feel confident that even the most compromised luggage tags are quickly and accurately found, read, and decoded.

​​Cognex ATR tunnel systems are designed to handle the fast-paced environment and high-volume demands of airport baggage handling. Built to meet evolving IATA standards, they improve tracking, security, and on-time baggage delivery. At the core of these tunnels are DataMan barcode readers that provide reliable traceability throughout a bag‘s journey. With Cognex ATR tunnel systems, airports benefit from faster and more accurate barcode capture, as well as dependable performance across various bag types. These advanced systems offer real-time traceability, enhancing operational efficiency and minimizing downtime. 

Some of the top airports in the world use Cognex technology to:

• ​Achieve high read rates, regardless of barcode quality, placement, or orientation
• ​Maximize conveyor coverage with fewer readers
• ​Capture full-color images of each processed bag to analyze unread code issues and link bag tag numbers to the corresponding bags, supporting quality assurance and traveler confirmation
• ​Perform with an average 67,000-hour (or 30-year) mean time between failures (MTBF) rate

With fast deployment and intuitive operation, Cognex ATR solutions with powerful barcode scanning help you enhance operations and raise customer satisfaction – bag after bag – with support from our global experts and self-service tools.​