Baggage handling —

CAN YOU MAKE IT FLY?

Just working out how many pairs of socks you need when you’re off to the Seychelles, Milan or Timbuktu is a struggle in itself. The transfers also take it out of you. Be it trekking for miles at Frankfurt or misreading signs at Tokyo’s Narita airport. At long last you’re at the conveyor, waiting for that precious bag. Suitcase after suitcase rolls up, people yank them off the belt, but yours is nowhere to be seen. Damnation.

Maybe you feel you’d want to do something about this. Not just to rescue your own bag, but to improve or perhaps even change the whole system of baggage handling. Statistics reveal that 21.6 million bags were, as they put it, mishandled in 2016. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Then again more than four billion bits of baggage were handled by airports in 2017. So, whichever way you look at it, baggage handling is a major operation.

Here’s what we’re after —

If you feel that improving airport baggage handling is your bag, so to speak, we want you to enter this competition. Either you come up with a solution for the whole system. (Big task.) Or you concentrate on improving one particular aspect of baggage handling. (No small task, either.)

We firmly believe the whole world’s waiting for turgid and flawed baggage handling to go away forever. So, to all of you 2019 design students and graduates, here’s your golden opportunity. Don’t try to second-guess what we’re after. Instead, do exactly what you like! Those of you who are lucky will be handsomely rewarded with a cash prize.

Finalists may apply for a six-month paid internship at a TMHE Design Center.

First Prize:

€5,000
Second Prize:

€3,000
Third Prize:

€2,000

Start/Check in

Your bag is packed. Time to check it in, perhaps on your smartphone.

Baggage drop

Now you’ll be lugging your bag about in search of a trolley. Next is waiting in line for baggage drop.

Transport to terminal

This is where handling, sorting and transporting takes place. Your bag and everybody else’s goes on a journey, where the idea is they should turn up at the right place, at the right time – every time. Efficiency and reliability are key.

Transport to aircraft

Bags are put on some kind of conveyor before loading on the plane.

Loading aircraft

From the baggage trucks onto the plane – manually handled baggage.

Baggage return/Arrival

You’re at the baggage carousel waiting for your suitcase. Alternatively it can be sent on direct to your hotel.

Are you the person to get a handle on baggage handling?

You either come up with a solution for the whole system. Or you concentrate on improving one particular aspect of baggage handling. Put the bag on any (or all) of the green dots above.