TERMINAL 5 HEATHROW AIRPORT - Case Study Example

that is normally associated with systems failure, human error as well as insufficient controls and procedures during business related transactions as well as the negative effects on reputation brought about by the inability to correctly implement the processing. (Loader, 2007) This risk can also be further subdivided into technology risk, operations risk, malicious risk, regulatory risk as well as reporting risk. The number of airline passengers as increasing globally at a rate of 5%. (IATA, 2008)This means that volume of baggage is also fast increasing at roughly the same rate.

This will undoubtedly pose new challenges to many airline companies as well as airports. With baggage volumes and traffic ever increasing, this leads to stiffer security regulations as well as increases in cost pressures year after year. Due to these factors, baggage has become a much more critical factor before, during as well as after flights. This means that identification of baggage has to be reliable, accurate as well as economical in the long term. Several solutions and innovations have been introduced for this purpose like the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) that is in the UHF range that offers the advantage of contact less writing as well as reading of bags tags.

The terminal makes use of a system that has been manufactures by the Vanderlande industries. The aviation industry ships around two billion bags annually and the costs that the industry has to pay due to mishandles bags currently stands at about U.S$ 3.7 billion per year. This however excludes the costs due to delayed flights, refunds of the passengers’ parking fees that were necessitated by baggage delayed flights. If these were factored in, the costs would increase to more than US$4 billion annually.

In the list of customer complaints, baggage problems are ranked as the second most common complaint. (U.S Department of Transportation, 2006) This therefore means it has a very significant impact on customer