The History of Bag Tags
In this blog, we take a look back at the history of the luggage tag - from the hand-filled cardboard box to the connected tag.
Origins
The first luggage tag appeared at the end of the 19th century in Moncton, New Brunswick. It was patented on 5 June 1882 by John Michael Lyon and used for train travellers. It was the first separable coupon ticket. It contained several items of information, including the station of departure and arrival, and a consecutive number for reference. The lower part of the ticket was given to passengers, while the upper part had a hole through which it could be inserted into a brass sleeve and attached to luggage with a strap.
At the same time, other labels were also used. These simply featured a logo or image of a hotel, railway, shipping company or, later, even an airline. Their main role was to promote transport companies.
When the aviation market developed in the 20th century, destination labels became necessary. They were based on the model used in maritime transport, but with one important difference: the weight of the baggage. While weight was of little importance in the maritime sector, it was essential in aviation in order to distribute the load in the aircraft. So, from the 1920s onwards, a space reserved for the weight of the baggage appeared on the labels.
It was in the 1930s that airlines began to use the baggage label patented in 1882, adapting it in their own way. Airlines began to include their logo on the baggage label, along with other useful information such as the passenger's name, destination, baggage weight and the distinction between "cabin baggage" and "hold baggage". The labels were then pre-printed and the information was entered manually.
In the 90s, with the development of the airline industry and the opening of new airports and destinations, these labels became obsolete because they offered little security and were simply not strong enough to travel around the world. This was the origin of the contemporary tag as we know it today. The first airline to massively deploy this new label, known as the automated baggage tag, was United in 1992.
Barcoded luggage tags
Unlike its ancestor, today's labels can withstand a wide range of climatic conditions, including cold, heat, sunlight, ice, grease and even mould. It is also flexible, inexpensive, disposable and tear-resistant to ensure that it does not come off during travel.
But the main revolutions have been the replacement of the 'string', by an adhesive strip making the label easy to attach and detach and more solid, and of course the addition of the barcode allowing automated sorting of luggage by barcode readers.
In fact, thanks to the double barcode printed on the labels (horizontal and vertical), they can be read automatically and at high speed by the laser scanners on the conveyors.
The solution is not infallible, however, and there are still problems with barcode reading, which is sometimes made difficult or impossible by dirt, for example.
A field of constant innovation
In 2019, IATA (the International Air Transport Association) voted Resolution 753 to support the global deployment of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for baggage tracking, aiming to introduce modern baggage notification standards to enable more accurate, real-time tracking at key stages of the journey. This will reduce baggage losses and handling errors, with the ultimate aim of passenger satisfaction.
Airlines such as Delta and Air France are already integrating the technology into their baggage tags.
Below: Picture of RFID bag tags including the RAIN inlay developed by Paragon ID
