Izumisano, Japan:

Kansai Worldwide Airport in Japan cannot be held chargeable for the much less superlative efficiency of airways or different stops on a traveller’s journey, but it surely claims its handlers by no means lose a bag.

In 30 years of operation, the airport serving the area round Osaka and Kyoto says it has by no means misplaced a suitcase, a set of golf golf equipment, a stroller or something actually — a feat its workers humbly shrug off as nothing particular.

“We simply observe the work processes and guidelines and do what we’ve got to do,” Tsuyoshi Habuta, the supervisor at CKTS, one of many dealing with firms at Kansai, advised AFP.

There isn’t a “particular coaching” however Habuta and his groups deal with greater than 3,000 items of bags every single day with consideration to element.

“We rigorously deal with suitcases to keep away from shocks. Suitcase handles are aligned in a course that’s simple for patrons to choose up,” Habuta stated.

“We hand fragile objects, strollers, surfboards and skis on to passengers,” he stated.

Baggage is on the carousel inside within the terminal constructing “inside quarter-hour of the plane’s arrival to minimise stress of shoppers,” he added.

Certainly one of Japan’s busiest worldwide airports, Kansai was ranked the World’s Finest Airport for Baggage Supply by UK-based airport score organisation SKYTRAX in April.

“Everybody on the Kansai Airport is pleased with this,” co-CEO of the airport Benoit Rulleau advised AFP.

Rulleau acknowledged that it’s simpler to attain zero misplaced baggage at an airport reminiscent of Kansai, which serves comparatively few connecting passengers.

However he stated the achievement displays the “unbelievable devotion” of the airport’s workers. 

The variety of misplaced or delayed baggage has sharply decreased globally prior to now decade because of expertise, stated Nicole Hogg, baggage portfolio director at SITA, a Geneve-based IT companies supplier within the air transport trade.

“If you consider the passenger volumes that we’ve got, 6.9 baggage being mishandled (per 1,000 passengers) is a really low determine,” Hogg advised AFP.

“A decade in the past, we have been in double figures,” she stated, including “the trade investing in expertise is unquestionably paying off.”

She defined that baggage is never mishandled when passengers don’t have any connections.

“The complexity actually comes within the switch course of the place passengers have quick connection occasions they usually’re making an attempt to get from one flight to a different,” she stated.

Kansai just lately returned to its pre-pandemic stage of 25 million worldwide passengers a yr.

Forward of the Osaka Expo 2025 it has gone by way of a renovation with a brand new safety checkpoint that enables for an excellent smoother expertise.

Rulleau stated the airport will be capable to accommodate as much as 40 million passengers a yr — and doubtless none of them will lose their bag.

(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)