In the future, systems will increasingly recognise the information needs of individual passengers, enabling personalised interaction between traveller and service provider. Using a pager or other small wearable terminal, you will receive updates on your flight and your luggage.
This will replace the present broadcast system using screens and the terminal PA system. During a lengthy stopover in Lima we were called by name to check our transit card – an unexpected summons, which I guess may already have been repeated half a dozen times, since we were attempting to doze in a quiet corner of the lounge.
Several hundred people had been obliged to listen to that announcement, before it reached the intended target, while the agent was kept hanging around at the gate. Hardly an efficient means of conveying information.
A final irony in the tale of our missing luggage was the two separate deliveries on the same day. For the system, it was clearly a case of two missing bags and not our missing luggage. Travel is a personal experience, and technology should reflect that.