Baggage Transfer Facility

Heathrow is now one of the busiest airports in the world.  The growth in passengers numbers and resulting increase in transfer baggage was causing major problems at one of the main terminals.

The volume of bags entering the system exceeded the operational capacity, resulting in lengthy baggage queues and long lines of vans and trucks waiting to offload bags.

An initial feasibility study and process review was carried out by Millar Management working closely with the operational management.

The study identified the need to extend the existing facilities, address core problems in the operation of the system and make modifications to the existing baggage systems.

Solution

A fully integrated solution was proposed which included the following:

Architectural designs of the extension to the building incorporating a new layout of the operations.

Baggage system modifications including reconfigured HBS lines, in feed bar code screening to pre-sort Terminal 3 and ITO bags and a dedicated early bag store.

Operational changes to address lack of conveyor line flexibility, layout errors, poor ergonomic design and lack of pre-sorting.

Additional flexibility and space to allow for future capacity increases.

Outcome

Millar Management project managed the installation and commissioning of the enhanced system.

The now fully operational enhanced facility, has reconfigured transfer offload lines,  pre-sort bar code scanners to pre-sort Terminal 3 and ITO bags and a dedicated early bag store.

The inherent capacity of the system has now been realised with throughput increasing by 110% and internal and external queues eliminated.