HOUSTON – Have you ever wondered what happens to your suitcase after you drop it off at the check-in counter at the airport?
While you’re trying to get through the TSA security checkpoint and to your gate on time, your suitcase goes on a journey of its own.
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At Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, your luggage might travel a few miles before it even gets loaded into the belly of the airplane.
KPRC 2’s Gage Goulding was granted exclusive access to the heart of the operation at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, including a brand new multi-million investment from United Airlines.
The new technology unveiled this year has one goal in mind: making sure your bag makes it on the plane in time.
To get there, your luggage travels along the 11 miles of conveyor belts before it ends up on those little carts that haul it out to the airplane to be loaded on.
“This belt, if you were laying it down, you get halfway to downtown Houston from Intercontinental,” said Juan Escobar, a ramp service manager with United Airlines.
He led our tour into the heart of the airline’s operations, including their shiny new contraption called a baggage handling system.
United poured more than $300 million into the airport’s infrastructure to built the state-of-the-art system that started moving in March.
The system is high-tech. Like, really high-tech.
As your luggage wizzes through the airport on a system of conveyor belts, scanners and cameras read the barcodes on your luggage tags to determine where it needs to go.
Computers then guide each bag to its individual location. If everything goes according to plan, the only human hand touching the bags will be loaded onto the airplane.
During the Thanksgiving holiday, United is planning to handle up to 65,000 bags per day. Remember, that’s only United and not the entire airport.
“This system, with EBS, is designed to handle up to 85,000 bags a day,” Escobar said.
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What’s an EBS? I’m glad you asked.
It stands for Early Baggage Storage.
It’s the biggest part of their new operation, an entire warehouse that’s just for storing bags that were checked in early.
“Our guys and girls downstairs had to separate those bags and carts, set them aside somewhere, then go back later and bring them up to the aircraft that’s traveling,” explains Clay Irvin, who heads up the operations team for United. “Now, the system doesn’t automatically and stores them. And two hours prior to departure, they send them to the current prospective areas and those folks to take them out to the aircraft.”
The system is one of only three in North America and the only own privately owned by an airline. The rest are owned by the airport system.
The warehouse is full of giant shelving units stacked nine high with robots that rush up and down little tracks carrying bags.
Computers know exactly where to store up to 3,300 bags and when to get them out so they make it to the plane on time.
Juan Escobar: “What the system is doing logically Storing the bags, Not putting all your eggs in one basket.”
Gage Goulding: “That way, if you need to release a bunch of them, It’s being released from different zones?”
Juan Escobar: “Yes. Different zones.”
While this system helps track bags for those who get to the airport early, the system will also help get bags to airplanes quicker for those who wait to the last minute to get to the airport.
You can help yourself not miss your flight before you even get to the airport.
“Our app is the best app in the world, so we recommend you do everything from home, pay for bag fees, tell us how many bags you check in and get all your boarding passes and anything you can do at home,” Irvin said.
While the airport can be a zoo during the holidays and the line you might have to wait in could be long, just remember the journey your suitcase has to take before it even gets loaded into the plane.
