SUSTAINABILITY AVIATION BY ELECTRONIC LUGGAGE TAG BAGTAG

Utrecht, 20 May 2020 | 8 minutes 

Sustainable flying is a recurring hot topic. Civil aviation is now responsible for such 2% a 3% of global CO2 emissions and more and more people are flying (in a regular pandemic-free year). Then there are the issues of unnecessary paper use and excessive contact times. For example, approximately 4.7 billion luggage tags are printed worldwide each year. To give you an indication: this is glued together approx 58 orbits around the earth*. All these baggage tags must be issued by ground staff, which is not entirely desirable in times of a pandemic like COVID-19.

Okay, so not surprising those questions about sustainable flying and headlines from the NOS such as 'Sustainable flying, an illusion'. The aviation industry is struggling. Due to the current COVID-19 crisis, the aviation industry is having an even harder time where possible: aviation is one of the sectors hardest hit by the current pandemic.

Is there only bad news for aviation? No, those who read our articles more often now know that gray and gray reporting is not our style. We prefer to focus on innovation and technical delights. We therefore present a major step towards making aviation more sustainable that you should all know: BAGTAG.

BAGTAG is an electronic luggage tag that air travelers can use to check in their bags online. The luggage tag is linked to an app that we developed in collaboration with BAGTAG. With the app, air travelers can check in anytime, anywhere with their smartphone. This has two major positive consequences: paper luggage tags no longer need to be printed and they do not have to be checked in and issued by the ground staff. In short: no more 58 laps around the world of unnecessary luggage tags.

Major airlines such as KLM and Lufthansa are already working with BAGTAG. It is expected that there will soon be more worldwide. For example, BAGTAG recently set up a partnership with China Southern Airlines.

We would like to congratulate BAGTAG on this great achievement and hope that everyone can fly safely again soon (including electronic luggage label).

The Coffee IT team

*This named BAGTAG a recent post. We haven't calculated it, but we are impressed.