VIRGIN Australia has become the first Australian airline to introduce bag tracking capabilities for checked luggage, with the pilot program launching this week on flights between Brisbane and Sydney.
Passengers on the route in both directions who download the Virgin Australia app are now able to receive a push notification letting them know if the carrier has successfully received their luggage post check-in, as well as if bags have successfully arrived at the end destination.
The new bag tracking feature will be rolled out across all services between Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and the Gold Coast by mid-2023, with regional airports to follow, a Virgin Australia spokesperson confirmed.
The announcement comes after several overseas airlines, including Air New Zealand, conducted trials for better luggage tracking tech earlier this month in an effort to combat reduce lost luggage occurrences, which reached an all-time high during the pandemic.
In fact, a recent SITA study showed that the global baggage mishandling rate skyrocketed to 7.6 bags per thousand passengers in 2022.
