Waiting in line to check a bag in, especially in a world where you already have a boarding pass on your mobile phone seems rather silly. It ranks up there with many of the Youtube videos people “swear” are funny, but aren’t. Thanks to some pretty cool new technology, and one luggage company hoping to change travel for the better, while forcing you to buy their (expensive) suitcases, you may never wait in a bag drop line again…
Rimowa partnered with Lufthansa to create a high tech suitcase with a digital bar code to replace paper luggage tags. Sounds simple enough right? Using bluetooth, users can transmit reservation and baggage data directly from an app on their phone to the suitcase, even including things like priority luggage handling status. It takes mere seconds. Best of all? You can do it from home, from the hotel, in the cab, on the train, anywhere. Once at the airport you’ll just wheel it up to a conveyor belt and off you go. No lines, no fuss. The e-ink displays the barcode (as seen below)…
It’s all very exciting and it’s definitely the future, but unfortunately for now, it’s not very cheap. It’s also not compatible with many airlines, yet. Rimowa’s bags with the state of the art new digital tags begin at about $625 and are currently only compatible with Lufthans. United is trialling the service before presumably, hopefully, making it a “thing’. If you fly on any other airline you’ll want to wait until it rolls out more expansively, and hopefully, is inevitably copied at a lower price point.
