Delta Tackles ATL Baggage Problems

With Atlantic Southeast Airlines often cited as having the worst baggage record in the Department of Transportation Air Travel Consumer Report, the major carrier announced it is updating its 30-year-old Atlanta baggage facility to the tune of $100 million, according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. The...

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With Atlantic Southeast Airlines often cited as having the worst baggage record in the Department of Transportation Air Travel Consumer Report, the major carrier announced it is updating its 30-year-old Atlanta baggage facility to the tune of $100 million, according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. The money will go toward five miles of conveyor belts as well as new baggage carousels that deliver bags faster from the airport’s six concourses. With two new kiosks in South Terminal, Delta is building a third with the other six completed by summer. Delta is ranked in the middle of the 20 airlines that report baggage and other consumer issues to DOT.
“The heart of the new system — more than 24,000 feet of underground conveyors, using existing tunnels — will be in place by late 2009,” said the newspaper quoting Delta Vice President-Airport Customer Service Greg Kennedy that, in addition to faster service, “will be a greater chance your bag will make it to your final destination."
Kennedy also cited the amount of resources devoted to baggage delivery to and from aircraft with the current tractor-pulled tugs. This will be replaced by high-speed conveyors to move baggage from the terminal and, according to the Journal Constitution, will afford more resources for bags needing to be transferred between flights with less-than-an-hour connection times. Delta, which accounts for the vast majority of Hartsfield-Jackson flights, handles about 105,000 bags a day at the airport — about 30 million a year, it said, adding the old system was made for the 400 daily flights Delta had at the time, not the 1,000 it has today.