Designing Efficient Airport Baggage Drop Solutions
The Big Problem
Imagine arriving at a busy international airport in an unfamiliar country as you begin your journey home after a relaxing golf trip. You’ve arrived two hours before your flight, as recommended, but know that checked baggage drop-off closes 90 minutes before flight departure. You’ve already checked in online, so now you just need to figure out where to drop your bag.
Looking at a board, you note that baggage drop-off for your airline can be found at Row K. You make your way there and find plenty of available self-service bag drop kiosks. The instructions are in English, but your mother tongue is French. You can understand spoken English well but struggle to read it, so you decide you should go to an agent, but the line is so long! You get in the queue and slowly start to sweat as you see the minutes tick down. With ten minutes to spare, you are finally at the front of the line. However, the agent explains that while she can accept one of your checked suitcases, your golf bag needs to be dropped off at a special location—Row A. Panic begins to set in, as you only have a few minutes to get your bag there before baggage drop-off closes.
Unfortunately, this is a common experience for passengers. With so many options for baggage drop and a lack of clear instructions on which to choose or how to use them, the experience can be very stressful even for seasoned travelers. Beyond worsening the passenger experience, bottlenecks at baggage drop can be costly for airports and airlines. Long queues or confused passengers can lead to delayed flights, and overburdened bag systems can increase the risk of mishandling, leading to bags that don’t make the flight or are lost.
Traveling can already be a stressful experience, and to avoid contributing further anxiety, we must leverage behavioral science to design more efficient airport baggage drop solutions. By understanding the cognitive limits that shape passenger decisions, interventions can be designed that simplify the process and make baggage drop-off a smoother, more pleasant experience.
About the Author
Emilie Rose Jones
Emilie currently works in Marketing & Communications for a non-profit organization based in Toronto, Ontario. She completed her Masters of English Literature at UBC in 2021, where she focused on Indigenous and Canadian Literature. Emilie has a passion for writing and behavioural psychology and is always looking for opportunities to make knowledge more accessible.
