Latest / The Future Travel Experience (FTE) Podcast / Winning the game of flow: baggage handling innovation at London Heathrow

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Winning the game of flow: baggage handling innovation at London Heathrow · The Future Travel Experience (FTE) Podcast

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Ever felt like the world is moving too fast, that there's simply not enough time between clearing your inbox and joining the next team's call to give deep and meaningful thought to the technologies that are about to transform your aviation operation?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, help is at hand with this new Future Travel Experience podcast.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Proud to be part of the Apex family.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Max Gosny.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Tune in for a collaborative and friendly forum where we'll guide you on the innovations that are too important to ignore.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Each episode I'll be interviewing aviation chiefs who've blazed a trail with new technology.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: You can listen on your way to work while travelling to an Apex FTE event or even while walking your dog.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever your preference, you'll uncover a wealth of collaboration, best practice, and creative thinking.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to today's episode.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Baggage handling is often described as a game of flow.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: If so, then what tactics can help you win big at one of the world's busiest airports?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: To find out, I went to meet with Jamie Ratcliffe, Senior Product Development Manager for Baggage at London Heathrow.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Jamie and I took an extensive walk around T5's near 30 kilometre baggage handling system.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't cover every single inch of ground, but my legs were pretty tired by the end of that tour.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And as I put them up and sat down for a cup of tea with Jamie, we talked about why, if you had the optimum system, you'd lay out that baggage handling conveyor belt in a straight line.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: But real life means that you get nooks and crannies, robots squeezed into spaces built for people, and you are having to contend with those designer accessory rogue straps that always find something to catch on to and snap.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: In the episode, Jamie talks to me about how you designed tomorrow's baggage operation inside a heritage airport shaped by yesterday's decisions.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy the episode.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here with Jamie at uh Heath Throne.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: We've just done the tour of the baggage system at T5.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much for that, Jamie.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting times.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um we saw a lot, but I just wanted to begin by asking you about the concept you have here of relentless productivity.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us more about what that is, what it means, and what you hope to achieve?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's uh uh one, I can't I can't take any credit for uh relentless productivity.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's kind of it's almost what we do today.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're um, as Darren has said before, we're we're busy from start-up to close down.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we do have peaks and troughs in demand, but we we really are busy the whole day, depending on which terminal you look at.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we're we're getting busier.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So relentless productivity is sort of a uh a label that I've put and and uh myself and the teams have put on how do we take those next steps about getting the best out of our systems and our spaces uh and our people uh in the right way, uh either utilizing technology or changing process uh or just taking uh going a bit further with how efficiently we can use what we've got.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we um the system we've just walked around, um, and it took us some time because it is very large, I think believe over 30 kilometers of um conveyor and I I have not measured that, Max, but uh but yes, I'm told over 30 kilometers of conveyor belts.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that doesn't include the amazing uh tunnel connections with the the DCV uh that we have between Terminal 5A, B, C, and uh Terminal 3.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and of course, all of the the crane movements and everything else in the bag store, which we saw.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, a lot of system packed into not a small building, but it's fairly full.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I know here you've spoken about it at the FT uh baggage innovation working group sessions.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a big challenge to deliver that productivity around capacity challenges.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um within that 30 or so kilometres of system, where is the bottleneck?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you think we could do that?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: We could achieve the biggest saving.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's a tough call.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the strive has to be to take automation further than we've taken it already.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think one uh one misstep potentially in conversations is stating that we need to automate.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Background systems across the world have been automated for decades.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're now at that that next frontier and we now need to introduce automation where technology allows us to, and tech readiness level levels really are achieving it, at the edges of what we currently call the system.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's not to say that we don't have bottlenecks in our current system.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: We are busier than we thought we'd be when we first designed Terminal 5.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we always knew the airport was going to grow and that was going to enable it, and it really, really has.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: But we're getting up to the edges of what our systems and the way that they're currently used today, um, what we can achieve with it.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to find spaces to we we need to create breathing space to be able to change.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there are programs rolling at Heathrow that look to address this.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: There are no uh there's no fixed and final solutions just yet, uh, but lots of good ideas going into the pot.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, some of those involve iterating our current system, uh the one that we've seen at Terminal 5.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, others, well known, uh, we I think we've talked at FTE about it before, the Terminal 2 baggage system and and the advancement that that will bring, the reduction in manual handling.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that manual handling is where we start to get to the moral point of what we do and how much we ask humans to do at the airport.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's where we really need to be able to say we're automating to be able to protect today's workforce, to be able to uh operate uh uh or meet the demand expected of us by our by our airlines, um, but also not to answer that growth in demand with the the historical answer of human resource, extra equipment, extra space.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: We need to we need to think differently, do things differently.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: How do you see humans fitting within the future of uh baggage systems and innovation?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Are we ever present or will will ultimately the future baggage handling systems be fully automated?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I I I am a Heathrow asset, so I know Heathrow well, and I don't I I know what I've been uh kindly shown of other airports, but that's not many, and there are many more out there that I don't know.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um my estimation from what I see at the moment is that we are looking to probably protect today's headcount and prevent it growing.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are always, from a baggage point of view, uh there are always exceptions.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to think that every bag coming in was conformant, a certain size, a certain weight, packed in a certain way and labeled absolutely perfectly.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: It just isn't reality.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's where the exceptions come in that we really need humans there, because it will only ever, in my mind, be effective to automate for the bulk, for the for the for the large uh majority of that demand.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it will be effective to have you'll always need a human there to deal with those exceptions, to deal with those weird things that we just end up dealing with in airports.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: You must have seen a few weird things in your time here since I think 2017.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: So what are some of the top top weirdest items that pass through that system?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's hard to say.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think I think you you deal with some of the strangest situations in the passenger environment.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was lucky enough to police the airport before and then be part of the security, the huge security team at Heathrow, uh, for a couple of years before I joined Baggage.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And undoubtedly it is the it's the human element uh of the airport that provides probably the most stories.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, those can be good and bad days for people, so probably best not to go into the details of those.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: From a bag point of view, it re it's really the uh the extreme of what you realize people are traveling with, from and you know, uh long told stories of wedding dresses and medication that's required immediately, uh in the middle of thousands of bags that are in a system, and you have to find it.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um passports left on suitcases, deposited at a check-in.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about that today.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's there's many strange things, and you never stop learning in baggage, uh, which is which is why I uh I keep hanging around.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, there are people people will travel with what they need to travel with.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and in general, those things are incredibly important to them.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: We need to take pay care and attention to those things and try to deal with those exceptional items.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, as a cyclist, Max, you're traveling with your bike, you don't want to get to your um Tour de France uh race without your bike.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's no point in going.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: So protecting the ability to travel with what you need to travel with is absolutely paramount, but also recognizing that that means we deal with some pretty weird stuff um is is key to recognizing that there are humans involved.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: As far as I can see, well into the future.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess that for me, the passenger lady whose wedding dress that went through, you'd want to know that the human was dealing with that item compatibility carefully.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think you know, some of those stories are really old.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we we we deal with important stuff every single day, every hour of every operational day.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think what's great now is where you see the airlines and airports communicating with the passenger about bag status.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that works really, really well to give people, especially when they're traveling with those really important things, the comfort, the care.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: They can go on and enjoy their journey a bit more without the stresses and works.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's not saying that many bags miss.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: As a percentage, it's it's tiny.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and you know, we should we should all airports should be rightly proud of how well we do this.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: But some of the stuff that gets put in the systems provides the challenges for providing that service for the rest of the people.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where, you know, uh, be it a guitar case, be it a stroller that springs open, be it um a carton of holy water from from from Zamzam, from Mecca.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um those things provide challenges in the system that mean that we have to fight to protect the flow of bags.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's recognizing that and using technology now to protect our systems to be able to provide that service is is key.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um talk to me about some adaptions that could help with that efficiency.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we we spoke earlier around perhaps trays and items that that might help prevent some of the everyday challenges you've got around rotating bags, around snags caused by some of those uh those um bag tags that we put on or the oh we we saw a great example of the um the canvas style strap that was strap put around a bag.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um we talked about how terrible they are for systems.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're easily caught on things, and they're so strong they don't break, so they can cause significant damage.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: They can bend metal.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: They can bend metal.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: They will they will trap a bag and then they will trap every bag behind that bag, and the pressure of that will will pull conveyor housing uh into different shapes.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: You've then got um, I suppose one thing we looked at was our ATR arrays, our automatic tag readers.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: We've got the ability now, we've done trials last year, very successful with with a few companies, um, and we're just picking who we're going to use to carry out classification.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that means that we can make the we can we can allow the system to make an automated decision instead of relying on a human who can be fallible in this, um, but we can allow the system to make better decisions, we can teach it to make even better decisions beyond that around what bags should go into a system or not.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not difficult.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I remember when I first started uh in baggage, uh very wise person in BA said to me, if the Walker's Crisp factory can decide what size of crisp to put in a bag, why can't we get it right for baggage?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now we think we can.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: We think that with camera technology, camera vision, and the things that are uh not just emerging in the market, really prevalent, they're there.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we can adopt that technology.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: We can we can move into a space that protects our systems and reduces the decisions that humans need to make at that point.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: All of that helps the flow.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: All of that helps to protect the service that we offer and provide the the really boring and mundane flow that we really aspire to get.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I've heard you you and your colleagues when you spoke at the uh FTBIWG me to talking about this as a game of flow.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's always an interesting term to give it.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what were the tactics to win in that game?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I think one is a great forecast.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have we have a fantastic team here in the uh uh in the planning uh operational planning area.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um that forecast is never going to be perfect, but it's not far off.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: It it really gives us an idea of how busy our uh not not just our hours are gonna be in the operational day, not just our days, our hours, but also down into the 15-minute segments.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: We can really reliably know what we're going to see.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, no plan for survivors first contact.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: My my wife's constantly telling me that.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it really does allow us to plan our resourcing around it.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: It allows us to understand where we're going to likely see pinch points.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: What's I suppose one misconception that's that's been leveled at me before a few times before the systems do not run faster in a peak period, they do not operate differently in a peak period, they just continue to chug along at the speed that they're set to.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: The screening happens, but what happens is those little things, those little deviations, start to build up and start to cause congestion.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: So understanding what causes those, be it a poor read rate on a tag reader, improving that read rate improves the flow.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's uh it's an aggregation of marginal gains for us now with our existing systems.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's not to say that we can't make big changes, we can.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there are some fantastic ideas coming out of the programs now about how we how we can use current uh baggage technology to improve our existing systems.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that iteration of things that snag the flow, that that iterative improvement of things that snag the flow is really where the game is at for us.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that that gets right back to that relentless productivity.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's to be as fast as we're set to be all the time, not just when we need it, all the time, because it only takes a power outage, it only takes um uh a bag that breaks up in the system, uh uh uh an engineer that puts his toolkit into the system that the latch breaks on, and we suddenly have tools and everything through the system.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to protect against those things.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be able to use camera technology to protect those things, to get better read rates on tag readers, to prevent risky things being put into the systems, and to put those risky things into the less risky flow of out-of-size, out-of-gauge baggage.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, iterative things um and the technology is there to do it.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: We talk much about innovation in our industry and on FTE.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: What does that word mean to you and what what how perhaps is it misused?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I don't we're we're we're an incredibly difficult place to innovate at.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um really because the uh to my mind the airport is so busy finding the space and the time to truly innovate in the way that the you know the the the wonderful companies that attend the FTE are are are truly doing.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: They've got products.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: So is it innovation or is it adoption?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where our conversation went to.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: So and what's the difference between the two?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, innovation for me is developing something on-site specific for your airport, not buying a product and levering it into your flow because you know what it does.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's camera vision technology is adoption of that technology.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: The innovation might come because it might improve or offer opportunities with the process around it, it might alleviate something that someone does today, and therefore you can innovate where that person is then best used and how they how they how they're employed and how that happens.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I think where I look at um, and and um and a lot of this conversation comes from FTE, so thank you very much.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: But uh where I look at the fantastic things that are on offer out there in the market, the innovation's happening with those companies, the adoption for me needs to happen with us.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: We need to look at known and proven things.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're a little bit distrusting.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we want to run a trial, but we're generally running a trial of something that the uh the product owner has trial and tested many times before.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: They just we just need the confidence that it works at an airport.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think when you look at parcel and warehouse, you know that a huge amount of what was what we might term innovation now for airports is actually proven.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we saw on our tour uh this morning a couple of examples of where you are trialing adapt more adaptation of those innovations from companies, but with the uh photographing of the bags, the ID, codes.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: You tell us a little bit more about um what's going on there and and how you see that improving the system.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I do not want to take any credit in that space.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that that is us um doing our best to support IAG in their endeavors to bring innovative technology, I'll go that far with it, um, into our spaces for uh for whatever purposes.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So what we were looking at um at the time was uh a couple of readers uh spaced out or I think we've got five or six of them spaced out throughout the T5 system, uh, looking at baggage biometrics and the benefits that that can be bring.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think they've proven their case.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh and it it is still staggering to me that you can uh take an image of a bag and uh just from its unique characteristics recognize it.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: A fingerprint of a bag, you can recognize it at another airport without a tag, without anything else like that.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Unique s marks and scars and scratches and things that are on it help to identify it in that fingerprint way.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think it's proven.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it's it's all possible.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's what is it solving today and does that can that is that viable at scale?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because that starts to become a network thing.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: That starts to become something where um we need the industry to be behind it.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we see the challenges, we see we see IATA, um uh the IATA uh rulings and and and guidance, and not every airport is able to pick up on it and act on it immediately.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Very difficult industry to change.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um we really are that fabled oil tanker uh trying to turn around.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of variation between airports, different geographies, different sizes and styles of airports as well, which then impacts on the design of the baggage handling systems and the without a doubt.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Your your your your best baggage system in the world is a straight line conveyor.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or even just someone putting a bag into a screening machine and out at the other side, no conveyors involved.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's your perfect baggage system.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right, very little to go wrong.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as simple as possible to maintain, all of those things, but that only survives so far when you start to drive demand into or or through that system.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: You then have to scale up, you then have to provide, and depending on the airport, we talk today about the value of an early bag store.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we we value allowing air uh customers into the airport as early as possible, they have a better experience.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's for us, it's proven through the surveys that we do.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um to do that, we need a bag store.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: To have a bag store, you have to have a system that both delivers a bag direct to an output or to a bag store.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: You need you need to interweave those things.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: You then need to be able to operate at scale.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And T5, whilst not the biggest system in the world anymore, is huge.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: It has a huge amount of capability.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to be able to pump the bags through the process and have all of the conveying behind that with all of the sortation that that means.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is it going right, left, up, or down?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is it going to storage?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is it going to build?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is it going out to the head of stand?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that all drives a certain complexity that requires a certain way of management.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, here at Heathrow, we choose to do that through strategic partners.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, other areas do it in different ways, but also other airports need really, really different systems.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: They don't necessarily, I learned so much recently by going to Dallas Fort Worth.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had not, I could not understand the airport when I looked at it.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I did not understand why it had been built that way.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and it wasn't until um someone stood on stage and explained that sport confused you about the the footprint.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: The the the the road through the middle, the um, I struggled to describe it, but the shape of the terminal buildings, etc.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was explained to me that that terminal was conceived pre-security.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: There was no security requirements at that time.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: So people would park, it was essentially a bus terminal, and people would park in a car park that was as close to their gate as possible, and they would walk directly through the building to get on their plane and go.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly it makes sense, and suddenly you realize the challenges, the legacy challenges that we we have because we inherit the regulation of today.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not all airports can turn that stuff around and do things differently, and then you have to live with those decisions for decades.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: We do that here at Heathrow, right?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: But every time we move on, we try to learn a bit more, try to do it a bit better.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we know how space constrained we are here.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we've talked about it.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we must do things in a certain way.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: That pressure isn't felt by other airports.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: You take Istanbul, look at the size and the scale of that place.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is phenomenal, it is absolutely immense.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, staggering to walk around.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought I knew big baggage systems before I went there.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they do not have the same kind of space pressure that we do.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the Middle Eastern airports, they're not in the same space, so they don't need to cram everything into a smaller footprint.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: They can spread out and they get the benefits of that.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it means that they aren't necessarily driven to change things, to have to change things in the same way that we are.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Necessity is the motherhood of uh.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Make a date with us in Singapore on the 18th and 19th of November for the debut of the all-new Apex FTE Expo.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Move over Iron Man and Make Way Wonder Woman.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is a new super show that takes the Airline Passenger Experience Association's flagship Apex Global Expo to Asia and combines it with Future Travel Experience's long-established regional Asian innovation platform.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Powerful collaboration creates the industry's most comprehensive platform, passenger experience and innovation, connecting airline, airport, and technology leaders from across Apex and beyond to showcase the ideas and solutions that are redefining the future of travel.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Our show theme this November is aviation's new golden era high revenue, greater returns, and AIROI.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: You won't want to miss it.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Find out how you can join us now at www.future travel experience.com forward slash FTE Asia or email me at max at future travelexperience.com.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see you there.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked a lot about the systems and and um the technology as we do on FTE, but I've been intrigued to know about the leadership challenges um you have here amongst amongst your people and in the business.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can only talk about baggage.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I have some experience in in other parts of Heathrow, but really I only talk about baggage and um we we offer it I I don't run baggage, Andy Miller does.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Andy's my boss.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: He chooses to operate a really flat structure.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone has a voice and everyone has their area of expertise.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: There isn't a lot of treading on toes, uh, people know who to go to, and we have a culture of um find a solution.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's it's it's uh it's almost hard to take the question leadership challenge.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the challenges we do have is retention, but not the normal challenges around retention.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: We have amazing retention in the baggage space that he throw.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: People tend to stay for decades, which means that we store up a whole load of uh uh subject matter expertise in these people, and when they do choose to go, we lose a lot.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: We really do lose a lot.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we lost we lost a huge amount through COVID.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a lot of people chose to change career, uh retire, uh, do things like that.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I've always uh being relatively new to baggage, I keep saying this, I've been here since 2017, but um I have always benefited from working in a space uh surrounded by people with a lot more expertise.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I I do that here.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't I suppose the the the leadership challenge uh that we face at Heathrow is uh for for baggage is is being able to reconcile what we know we must do uh with what investment is available.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Prioritizing baggage, which selfishly we think is the most important thing at the airport, with absolutely the other flows, the things that must be done for aircraft flow and passenger flow, and being able to reconcile that back to a team who is solely focused on baggage, but we're not necessarily investing in the spaces that they would like to.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're not necessarily making the changes as quickly as we would want to, and keeping them motivated, keeping keeping them passionately involved in those projects, um, and understanding of the business cases around them and why why we may or may not be taking those next steps immediately.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, uh, you know, uh credit to you, but when we've walked around, everyone knows you by name, you're a familiar face out there at the the side of the baggage handling system, walking down through the levels.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how how important is that to be present?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Look, it's it's it's incredibly important.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: We we do pride ourselves on being out in the systems as much as we can.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we love to show off our systems.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think you saw that today, and and and we we managed to set records when you brought FTE here, so thank you for that as well.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um we didn't lose anyone else.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: We don't think we lost anyone.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's really important to be out there and be present, but I think everyone um everyone knowing each other shows the culture at Heathrow as opposed to the culture in baggage.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um we are a big airport with lots of people operating here, but Heathrow is not the biggest employer direct to Heathrow.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Heathrow Airport Limit is not the biggest employer at Heathrow.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: There are many tens of thousands more people employed by uh contractors, subcontractors, etc.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think what you saw as we walked around is probably some of the effects of having a very small, very small Heathrow baggage team, relatively, having a bigger uh, having the strength of strategic partnership with with Vanderland and DHL, um, and being actively pushing ourselves to be present, not end up in a silo, having difficult conversations openly.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that's really where um the good and the bad uh are are discussed, the good is celebrated.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's that's that's intensely valuable to me.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it means that I never I never feel at risk of someone not saying what they think.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is honesty, yeah, which is important.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um it is a very uh complicated, there's you know many stakeholders working within the system here at Heathrow, as are around in our industry, and it's part of aviation.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: What would you um what would you like to see perhaps from some of those stakeholders?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm thinking airlines and and handlers that could help with this whole journey of baggage and and driving efficiency.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: I well I think passenger, who is the ultimate customer, right?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I I come back to um I come back to that comment about automation earlier.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our systems are already highly automated.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: You put a bag in at check-in.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, even before that automation is touching your bag's journey with with self-bagdrop, self-tagging, those, all of those kinds of things.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that was that will stretch further out, closer to people's homes.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you see wonderful forays into that with air water, uh bags ahead, and those those kind of companies.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Automation has been a big part of how baggage has changed for decades, well before my time, taking no credit for that.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Where we say automation now, it's it's really at the edges of what we currently call the system.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Where we have humans doing things that really aren't it isn't sustainable long term.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, long term's an easy thing to throw out there.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what I mean is for decades more.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: We can't answer answer growth purely with more human resource, and we can't really expect the workforces of the future to want the jobs that exist today in baggage.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um which means that automation comes with many challenges but also many, many benefits.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um sustainability of employing people in baggage comes with automation, the interest levels of investing in baggage comes with uh automation.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: So all of the all of those things come together.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think it's it's hard to see a world for Heathrow's baggage operation that doesn't have robotic loading, robotic unloading.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we we I know on the T3 visit you saw our our two robots and a semi-automation area at Terminal 3.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're very proud of that area.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and whilst the robots may not be uh utilized in the way that we'd like them now, um like them to be now.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're we're very proud of what we've learned and that we took some of those first steps and we see so much progress in the industry.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the work that Schiphol is doing now, absolutely fantastic.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're hopefully soon to see something very exciting coming out of Oslo.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, those are all logical next steps for Heathrow.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And to be able to join FTE, to be able to share as much as we're sharing through Boost, to be able to go um through events like yours, to go and talk to industry and to go, no, no, that that's our roadmap, that's where we're going.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: For us is critical.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think um uh it might sound controversial.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're a terrible customer.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Generally, because we're really difficult.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: We say what we want and then we change our mind.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: We say we're going to invest and then things change.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: We have no space to uh to change, and yet we know we must do it.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: So all of these come with huge capital programs and and much complexity.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I think people can get very excited about wanting to work at Heathrow and then get very quickly unexcited by how difficult it can be to achieve success.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um I desperately want us to be a better customer.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: I want us to be clearer, I want us to be really upfront in where we're headed with our roadmaps.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I want to know I want the industry to know what we and and our other airports through Boost as well, what we need to succeed.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if we do that, we stop getting these bespoke offerings, we stop getting things that they think fit us that might have fitted somewhere else, and we're really clear, and we s we we we stop asking for uh a special, if that makes sense.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's standardized, yeah.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: How does uh a police officer decide to come and work in baggage handling television?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Fascinating to see.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I see I can I can almost visualize my team rolling their eyes as I talk through this.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was a farmer before that.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, multi-skilled.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I was lucky enough to work at a farm that's now become quite famous, Cannon Hall Farm, up in Yorkshire.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I did that all the way through college um and university in Leeds.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um after that I uh had a job in the Middle East.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's where I wanted to be.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up there.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh it felt everything fell through.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was um 2001, the obvious impact of 9-11, uh, opportunities dried up for a while, and I came back.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I met some fantastic guys uh uh who convinced me I ended up joining the police.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I was sure I was only going to do a couple of years in the Met in London and ended up doing 11.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then it was uh so my final uh years of service with Met uh were at Polar Park just across the road.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: So uh policing at Heathrow.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that comes with some really interesting, some fantastic training, some really interesting work, um, most particularly through the Olympics, um, and working a bit closer with security at Heathrow.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's through that develop some relationships.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one uh one particular relationship with a guy who I'll forever be grateful to, um uh Andy Margolis, uh now uh now helping to run um Vancouver IVR.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and he just he just convinced me to lift my head up, look at something else, and jump the fence and join the team in in security over at T5.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Never look back, never regret it.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't I don't I don't really pause to regret much, but um yeah.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then the same same Andy uh after he had moved convinced me to have a look at uh baggage at Heathrow.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um and now um now I'm not sure I can leave.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm I think I'm addicted.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that the team of what you do either.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't know what you've been doing, but and what what gives you the biggest sense um sort of buzz and enjoyment about the rock?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the the the people the the the the amount of experience as I say I I I thrive in an environment where people have a load of experience and knowledge and are and are are willing to share it.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um that that is absolutely the team that I operate in now, they're brilliant.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's also there there's there's some sort of drug about working at an airport.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in particular in baggage, a legal one, we hasten to add uh listen to it.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, it it it it is addictive, it is addictive, but in particular in baggage, I think I've been I've been really lucky to benefit from other people's experience, to benefit from a lot of trust.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, people people having confidence in me to give me a go in a different role.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was very much ops, as you can imagine, coming out of police and then security, the farming police and then security.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: So to be lucky enough to be part of the team who are trying to build uh a long-term strategy.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's so exciting to be looking at at technology that is literally ready to change the pain points of today.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: And just navigating um governance and business cases to be able to convince people to invest and solve those problems.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh I I think we all I think everyone in baggage thrives off solving problems.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: We very rarely stop and pat ourselves on the back for the stuff that we've done really well.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're almost always looking for that next fix.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: And how you you've been very good at um getting your heads up and and sharing ideas with colleagues at other airports through FTE, through taking visits like you've described to look around other airport um baggage handling systems.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: How important is that to running a successful airport?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: It it it's it's increased in importance the more it's been done.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: We we we started off wanting to learn.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it it all started um through involvement in the T2 baggage program, in the tender for the new system that's going into there.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I learned so much through that process.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful to the parties tendering and and their walking and talking us through the opportunities that we had.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, to take that then and say, right, well, that's that's solving a load of problems in one terminal, it's solving our capacity constraints, it's it's it it's lifting us out of a very aging system, doing those kinds of things.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: What else is possible?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: To then be able to just have be given the ability to talk to the industry, to be able to listen back, um, and to to find, I think, such uh such willing uh parties uh to discuss and iterate, and all of this builds into our strategy.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: So uh for us to be able to play a small part in making airports a better customer for the industry, that that's everything.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's so important.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: So quite altruistic in a way, too.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I I I I I I squirm at the word.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's not intended to be, it's genuine in the sense of we won't get a decent next product unless we're clearer, unless we're an informed subject matter expert, not on how does a robot work, but on what does it need to do and where does it need to fit?
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: I come back to what we talked about as we walked around the system.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're all asking the industry at the moment to fit robots around our current systems.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: That is absolutely right, but it's also short term.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: When are we going to build a system designed wholly for robots?
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: When are we going to allow the industry that freedom to say, no, here here is your next bit.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: Here is, you know, if if that's the roadmap, let's take 10 steps instead of one.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so putting robots into spaces designed for humans is fine.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that's where we need to build on that relentless productivity.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: But in that next terminal, unless we're talking about it now, we will only do what we're doing now, then.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that paradigm shift that John.
• 43:40
  unknown: Yeah.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Closing question.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: If we were to be coming back here in 20 years' time, you and I are a lot older and greyer, and uh maybe need some assistance to do 30 kilometers by that point.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: How different?
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: How does the um baggage handling system look?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you you need your crystal ball for this one, but just tell me how where you where do you think we'll be by that?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: point as an industry.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we we didn't see many technicians as we walk around the system today, as big as it is.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'll see in an operational live period, operationally live period, I I don't think you'll see many, if any, in the future.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think data-rich environments, we're all we we feel already quite data rich in package.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you looked at the sensors we've put on well we're starting to put motors into systems that drive data out, that tell us when to do things.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if the system starts talking back to us, you start to think that actually people don't need to be there as much or they can choose when they they're needed to do those things.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I can I can see that shifting when people are working.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: I can see that you know a much heavier workforce on a on a night shift or a non-operational period.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: I can also see us that that making a a quite a land shift in uh you know in how we manage systems and parts and spares and other bits and pieces.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I think if we were to walk around the bag hauls I think in the future what what you'll see is people probably similar numbers we it's it's not a huge workforce today relative to the amount of work that they do.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: But those people won't be lifting thousands of bags they will be helping the robots to pick up the flow.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: They will be doing those exceptional things.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: So um if if automation handles the load humans will handle the mission they'll be helping to orchestrate those robots operating as efficiently as they can they'll be ensuring that the logistics is feeding the beast that the be it containers or be it be it um trailers coming in they will be ensuring that that logistics is meeting that demand and that we can move into a more unit build environment as opposed to what we have today which is a flight build environment.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll we haven't mentioned AI right at the close of the podcast will there be how will AI fit in that environment will it fit?
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's there AI is going to be the thing running camera vision.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: It is going to be the thing that is ensuring that camera vision ensures how the robot picks up whichever bag it's picking up robot uh camera vision with AI is going to be turning the bag around so it's wheels first into a robot or wheels last it it's kind of everything and I think it's going to also be monitoring for those exceptions enabling the humans to be uh responding to alerts as opposed to actively walking around looking for problems.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Working alongside us not replacing us absolutely yeah absolutely so I I I AI's in there maybe remiss of me not to mention it but it feels like it's it's almost already wedded to every step we're going to take across the next 10-15 years.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: And less than those bag straps that cause the snags maybe yes are we going to are we going to refuse bags with straps on no we're always going to look to do the best that we can for the passengers and the way that they want to bring bags into our system we can advise and we can guide but we must understand that people will want to protect their bags so we need to protect our systems from the things that can damage them.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: And still wedding dresses and wedding dresses above all problems.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: Jerry thank you so much for your time and enlightening us um on the podcast episode today um I'm off to get a rest after that very long walk and I'm sure you'll do the same but um thank you so much you're very welcome very cute