Travel by air is fun because it takes less amount of time to reach the desired destination and it is hygiene-friendly, too. But it can quickly take a turn for the worse if the airline misplaces your check-in baggage or rather, loses it.

If you have been on the receiving end of it, then you may read on, because it could just be the article for you.

“Airlines are not usually very good at information technology,” BBC quoted Pascal Buchner, the chief information officer of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), as saying. IATA is the trade association for the world’s airlines.

According to a BBC report, airlines are positive that they can counter the situation of lost luggage/s by making a big investment in technology.

“We now know that data is the main source of performance for airlines,” Buchner said.

Jacques Demael, senior vice president of strategy and business support at SITA, explained it further.

He said, “During a single trip, a passenger may interact with up to 10 different entities – from airlines, government, ground handlers to at least two airports – all of which requires the secure exchange of data on baggage, flight and travel documents.”

Demael further added that the amount of data shared across the industry has “exploded” over the last few years.

So predictive maintenance, baggage handling and cargo tracking have all become important factors in learning how an airline operates. This will all point to how information is analysed in the day-to-day working of an airline.

The officials concurred that an easy trip is largely dependent on data, which starts from the moment you enter the airport to the point where you exit the airport.

“The ability to track your bag across multiple steps in the journey and share that information… significantly reduces the chance that your bag will be mishandled,” Demael said.

He added that baggage tracking data leads airlines to improvement rates of up to 66%.

“These improvements have resulted in baggage mishandling rates globally being cut in half over the past decade.”

A 2020 report from SITA found that in 2019, 25.4 million pieces of luggage were mishandled around the globe. It cost the air transport industry approximately $2.5 billion.

While the COVID-19 pandemic bore bad news for the aviation industry, IATA believes that the industry will return to 2019 levels in 2022.