The airport that hasn’t lost a single bag in 30 years

A big Japanese airport is planning to mark 30 many years of functions and, alongside with it, a milestone that many U.S. airports could only desire of: not a one piece of baggage has been lost since it opened its doorways.

Kansai Worldwide Airport companies the port town of Osaka as well as nearby Kobe and Kyoto and is amongst the busiest in Japan. It first opened in September 1994 and has routinely been celebrated for its functions and effectiveness. But its flawless history of baggage managing puts it in a league of its very own amongst important global airports — and could offer lessons for other hubs that wrestle with statements of lost or weakened baggage.

But there is certainly no secret sauce in how Kansai has managed its ideal document of baggage managing, Kenji Takanishi, a spokesperson for the airport, informed Newsweek.

“The ground managing employees at Kansai Intercontinental Airport is very little unique,” Takanishi explained. But they do have a program of redundancies in position to guarantee every bag reaches its place.

Groups perform in modest groups — two or 3 at a time to lessen how quite a few palms touch every bag. They use a detailed guide that specifies principles for how to load and unload the cargo holds of just about every airline that providers Kansai, and are instructed to frequently share information as part of the multilayered solution.

If the quantity of bags unloaded from a flight differs at all from the variety of baggage that had been loaded at its point of origin, staffers will straight away examine the cargo maintain and encompassing places.

The airport’s intention is to get a suitcase from the cargo keep to baggage assert within just 15 minutes of a flight landing, having treatment to location just about every piece of baggage on the conveyor belt with its tackle dealing with outward to allow for for quick pickup, Takanishi explained.

“Of system, if the bag gets moist from rain, it is wiped and returned” to the carousel. Particular items like strollers and sports activities equipment are hand shipped to passengers to ensure they usually are not destroyed all through the unloading approach.

Kansai handles up to 30 million passengers and 11 million pieces of luggage a yr, Takanishi stated, and these figures are expected to swell subsequent year when Osaka performs host to Expo 2025, a big global good that is projected to see some 28 million guests descend on the location for the six-month celebration. The airport is undergoing key renovations to put together for the Expo.

“Since lots of shoppers arrive to Kansai from all above the earth, we purpose to be much more courteous and exact in our operations,” Takanishi mentioned.

Kansai has been rated among the world’s best airports for its dining selections and personnel. SkyTrax, a United kingdom aviation website, has recognized Kansai 8 occasions specially for its baggage dealing with, such as as just lately as this 12 months.

At the other stop of the spectrum are airports like John F. Kennedy in New York City, which was not long ago named by Forbes as the U.S. airport with the worst monitor report for misplaced and weakened luggage.

Irrespective of its document of dependability, Kansai is struggling from some major difficulties — namely, that it is sinking at an alarming level. The airport was deemed a marvel of engineering when it was constructed atop two synthetic islands in Osaka Bay. Considering the fact that then, the airport has sunk 38 toes — considerably more than expected — and is projected to sink one more 13 ft by the middle of the century, placing it at sea amount.

Kansai has already been flooded by passing typhoons, and thousands and thousands have been used to fortify the islands from the encroaching sea.

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