Journey of a Suitcase

AirSpace Season 11 Episode 2 - Journey of a Suitcase

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AirSpace theme in then under

Matt: Welcome to AirSpace from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. I'm Matt.

Emily: And I'm Emily. It's the holiday season and that means millions of people are traveling by air and many people are checking their luggage.

Matt: But what actually happens to that suitcase once you hand it off? We went behind the scenes at Dulles Airport into the basement and out on the tarmac to learn how the baggage system works.

Emily: We're following a suitcase from check-in to baggage claim today on AirSpace sponsored by Lockheed Martin.

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Matt: So to learn all about how baggage gets from one place to another in the airport and then finally to your final destination, we went out to Dulles Airport, which is the biggest airport in the Washington D.C. region, and very close to our own Udvar Hazy Center. And we made a new friend, Jim

Jim: Hi, I am Jim Decker, Ramp Director for Ramp Operations in Washington, Dulles for United Airlines.

Emily: Matt, I was really jealous that I didn't get to come with you and producer Jen on this field trip, but it sounds like you guys had a great time with Jim.

Matt: Yeah, so Jim was really cool. He's been at Dulles for four years, but he's been with United for more than 30 at a few different airports, all of them major American airports, 

Jim: This is my favorite, though

Matt: And we couldn't have asked for a better guide. He really took us everywhere.

Emily: So I'm a very devoted carry on luggage person. But once in a while I have to check a bag. And like most people, I have stories about checking bags. Can you start off the story about what happens when you hand that bag over to the agent and they put that sticker on it with all the numbers that apparently mean something.

Matt: Yeah, so you know, it's all a little bit different from how it was when I was a kid traveling with my parents. These days because most of the airlines now have apps that you use to check in. A lot of the airlines know already before you even get to the airport whether or not you're gonna check in a bag.

And when you do check in a bag, they put that sticker on it. As you said, that has numbers and barcodes on it. And for the rest of its journey, that barcode is really gonna direct where it goes and, you know, how it gets to you at the end of your trip. 

Jim: You bring your bag to the counter. They check to make sure your information is correct. And they put your bag on this belt here. At this point here, your bag is scanned. We scan your bag at every point just so we can keep track of where it's at 

Emily: And I've used some of these apps and I really love how they let you check where your bag is going. It's better than an Air Tag, I think, because you get these solid locators of, like, your bag was scanned in here and it was scanned out over here. And I really like how you can track that on some of these apps.

Matt: Yeah, you really can get real time information about where your bag is in the whole process. You know when you get on the plane and you look at your phone on the app, it'll tell you whether or not your bag's been loaded on the plane or not. So you can look out the window and try to see your bag going on the plane, but you also can see that that tag has been scanned and that the bag is there.

So it's a, a little bit of additional, uh, confirmation that things are going as they should be.

Jim: So from, from a technology perspective, it's our scanners that, that truly make the difference of knowing where the bag is at all times

Nat Sound: Squeaky door opening into room with industrial hum (hum continues under dialogue) 

Matt: Most of the baggage magic happens on the lower level of the main building of Dulles. This is kind of behind baggage claim and behind doors that say authorized personnel only. 

So Emily, if you can kind of imagine you've been in the lower level of our Museum, right? Which is like the lower level of many buildings, right? It's where you look up and you see a lot of, um, wiring and things going in all different directions, right?

Emily: Lots of utilities

Matt: Uh, lots of utility stuff, so this was a lot like that but then also overhead you have all of these conveyor belts operating and bags going in different directions 

Industrial hum gets louder

Jim: So you can see all these belts that are here. That belt over there is where that, that bag we just saw dropped down into the system. It goes down there, comes through here, and it goes into that wall right there. That's where it gets screened. We'll show you that right now.

Industrial hum fades under but some metallic thuds sound periodically

Matt: It seems like this incredibly kind of industrial mechanized process, but then the bags are also kind of coming down these chutes to where people are then handling the bags and taking them from one place to another.

So it's like this very active frenetic space where machines are moving and people are moving and everything is just sort of operating, incredibly, I would say like efficiently moving from one place to another with very little wasted time.

Industrial noise fades up

Matt (on location): So where we were just standing, we had multiple belts above us going in different directions. Is any of the process that the bags, you know, take in that automated or is it people putting them on the right belts to go to? 

Jim: It's all automated. 

Matt: It is all automated. 

Jim: So everything, yeah, everything is automated. Um, and this is honestly one of the oldest bag systems in the system. We're actually getting an upgrade here in about six years… (fades under into)

Jim:  All this belting, there's two layers. There's two floors for TSA screening. There's machines on this floor and there's a floor behind below us. All the bags come into there and they spread out evenly between the six machines. They get screened, they come through here, get screened, then they'll go out through their screening machines, and then they'll go outside, up and down and around. They'll come into our back room over here. 

Then if your bag does, um, show an alarm, meaning that there's something in there that shouldn't be then it goes, it gets automatically, uh, shifted upstairs to a screening room where TSA’ll actually open it up. A lot of times people see in their bag when they open up, there's a letter there from the TSA saying, Hey, we looked inside your bag. It's because something in their bag alarmed it and they have to go in there and check it. 

Industrial noise fades out

Emily: And I think the whole TSA thing is always a little bit of a surprise to me, even though it's not a surprise to me because the number of times my checked bags get that little, do you ever get that little notice inside Matt of like TSA also checked your carry your also checked your checked bags. I don't know if you're like me, I'm always checking weird things in my luggage.

Are you not?

Matt: Well, I mean, when I go to California in particular and I come back here to, to DC I do like to bring with me certain hot sauces and, and, uh, salsas and tortillas and things that I just can't get the type that I like out here. So I will have lots of food sometimes coming back from California, stuff that you can't really bring in your carry on.

Emily: I think for me it's the hazard of being a geologist because there's usually all kinds of like, hammers, rocks, tools, and I have to imagine the tools look super suspicious, as those checked bags are being checked by TSA in a way that a traveler doesn't get to see happen.

And so whether or not your checked bags have been checked in that way is always a bit of a surprise once you get your bags back.

Matt: Right. And so all of that happens outside of, you know, the stuff that Jim actually operates. The TSA process, they have their own conveyor belts and they put things back into the system once they've done all of that checking and that's when, you know, things sort of resume their journey after having been checked by TSA.

Emily: But is Jim responsible for the things that are happening pre and post TSA is he, he's involved in the things getting bags to TSA and then he is involved in receiving all those bags from TSA and continuing them through the system. 

Matt: Yes. 

Industrial noise fades up and under

Jim: We have 38 chutes down here. These are called the chute. It gets put onto a tray system and it goes around and the computer knows by the bag tag. This tells you right here, this bag is going to Haneda, right? It scans the bag tag.

It knows that through the here, and it goes to the proper chute. Once it comes down here, our gentlemen or ladies. Will take it off the cart there. They'll actually scan it, put it into the proper container.

Industrial noise fades out

Emily: So can you tell me more about these baggage carts? Because I, I, I've only ever seen baggage carts on the tarmac when I'm sitting in the airplane and there's a little tractor car they remind me of Thomas the Tank Engine train sets where the, all the different like cars get sort of linked together, right? So I've seen that kind of thing on the tarmac and there's these like carts that are just stuffed full of luggage and that's what gets handled onto the airplane. 

When Jim's talking about carts, is he's talking about carts that are getting the bags in to the airplanes, or are there also carts inside the airport? 

Matt: Those are the same carts. So those carts are getting loaded up at, at the chutes where the bags are coming out. And then once those carts are loaded up and all of the bags that are supposed to be there are there, that's when they go out on the tarmac and get delivered to the airplane. 

And in fact, there are two types of containers or carts that your bag might go into depending on the size of the airplane that you're flying on. If you're flying on a large plane, some of these carts actually get lifted up into the airplane, you know, so the bags don't actually come off of the cart, the cart goes into the airplane. 

But if you're flying on anything smaller, then your bags are being loaded by hand from the cart into the, um, the, the aircraft. So, you know, you might see two types of, of cart out there on the tarmac when you're boarding your plane.

Industrial noise fades up, periodically the sound of cases suitcases sliding down metal chutes is heard

Jim: These all go on our wide body aircraft. This is what we call a ULD. This actually we fill the can up, like you see behind you on that can there, when it gets filled up, we actually just push it off onto a machine that puts it up into the airplane.

That's your wide body, that's your 767s, your seven um, triple sevens and your 787s. All your narrow bodies, we put those in a cart so we can go down here and see.

pause

So you just missed him scanning the bag, but he scanned the bag into this cart. What this does now is we have a team of employees that sit, um, in our, what we call our SOC, our Station Operations Control Center. They sit there and monitor all bags, all people, and bags, right? So we know that we're gonna have so many bags for each flight, um, by their scanning.

Industrial noise fades under, then out

Emily: I love this point because I've only ever seen the Thomas the Tank Engine, like train of small carts where they take the bags individually out of the cart. But this summer I saw for the first time ever the big carts and watching the machine take the giant container of luggage and move it onto the airplane hurt my head a little bit, but it was so, 'cause it wasn't just like a slide it onto the plane, there was this like whole choreographed mechanism that made it happen and it was super interesting to watch. 

Also, I'd been awake for 30 hours, so everything's really interesting at that point.

Matt: Yeah. I mean, when you talk about it being so super coordinated one of the things that we learned being there at Dulles with Jim was that a lot really goes into deciding how to load the airplane. They know ahead of time how many passengers are gonna be on the plane, where their seats are within the plane, so where the weight is gonna be, inside of the body of the aircraft, and they can then load the plane so that they're not overloading any one part of the plane and putting it off of balance.

Jim: And we have to put bags in cargo depending on which end weight and balance of the airplane. So depending on how much fuel it needs, the, the temperatures, how far it's going. Weather that's gonna happen. How many passengers are on board, where the passengers are sitting, depends on where we put the stuff.

Emily: I think it's really interesting that they load the bags into the plane in such a specific way, and I think I'm surprised by that and maybe I shouldn't be given that I have been on an airplane before. That was so empty that before takeoff, the flight attendants redistributed the passengers across the entire airplane to make sure that the human load was distributed properly in the cabin to reflect, I'm assuming, what was, what was done with the luggage load inside the belly of the airplane. And it all makes sense now.

Matt: Right. And you might have this idea that like the cargo hold of the plane is just a big empty space, but in fact it's, it's divided up into different areas that the, the crew call pits

Jim: Like I said, this is a cargo compartment is broken into three different areas. That's pit one, pit two, pit three, right? And then you can see pit three is much larger. Right. Um, and this is all manually processed. So somebody puts a belt loader up to the airplane and they actually have to load every bag or piece of cargo by itself.

So, and then we put these nets up to secure. So we open, when we open up the door that the cargo stuff, because it's shifting in flight, won't shift.

Matt: And you know, they do get real-time information from the flight attendants as well. If things are not looking the way they're supposed to or, you know, the way that they thought they were gonna look in the cabin of the aircraft. They're getting information about any of those changes that they can account for then with where they're putting the bags.

Emily: Yeah, and I think what's really interesting about all of the different complexities in the process is there's the, this is typically what's gonna happen to your bag once you hand it over at the desk and you put it on the conveyor belt. But it seems like there's a lot of different things that can happen in terms of like when you're checking in with respect to your actual boarding time.

I remember one time my bag being a little bit late and I went down to check in baggage claim like what was going on, and they were like, well, your bag has a flight to Atlanta. But it currently doesn't have a flight from Atlanta to Dulles. And I was like, how is my bag in Atlanta when I'm in Denver?

Right? Like, it was one of those situations where like the bag got checked early enough that they were like, let's just get a head start on this. And no worries. we, we came back together in the end a little later than expected.

Matt: Right, and that does happen to, you know, not every bag, but you know, every now and then if a flight is, say, already a little bit overweight, there's too much luggage on it. They might send your bag on another flight and get it to your final destination sometimes before you, sometimes a little bit after you, but you know, you will be reunited with your bag, but your bag might not, might not be flying with you.

Emily: Right. And you know, it's not usually that big of a deal, but it's one of those things where, um. It differs from the organized chaos, but there's good reasons for those kinds of exceptions to happen

Matt: Yeah, and you might also, you know, since I know you like to travel with your carry-on and you don't like to check bags, some…

Emily: Except for when they gate check! 

Matt: Right at the last minute, suddenly you have to check your, your carry on. And that's happened to, I think, all of us at some point. It happens to me pretty frequently 'cause I'm never in one of the early boarding groups.

I'm always towards the end and have to do the gate check and I never really mind because it's very easy to do at that moment. Um, but that obviously doesn't follow the same process we're talking about, about the sorting and, and moving through the system that gets checked right there into the airplane from the gate.

Emily: So what about a transfer Matt? Because there seems like there's all this organized chaos, but sometimes you have a really fast layover. Are they a, how are they able to get the bags where you're going?

Matt: So if you have a really quick transfer or you know, very short layover between your connecting flights, but you're flying on the same airline, probably those planes are coming in and leaving within a group of planes that's referred to as a bank, and so they know exactly where those other planes are gonna be for everybody who's connecting. They know where the bags need to go, so that can all be done really quickly because it's all been planned out, choreographed ahead of time. 

Jim: The other bags we, we segregate by, if they're what we call hot meaning they are going out within an hour. So any bag that's going out within it's 11:08, 12:08, we will take directly to the other aircraft, what we call tail to tail. So let's just, for instance, that's, this plane here is going Haneda here at D5. If we have bags on this and it's going out at you know, like, say 11:55, we'll take the bags from this aircraft directly to that aircraft, drop 'em off there.

If they're cold bags, meaning anything over an hour from departure time. We'll take them to the bag system that you saw. Or we have another belt that's over here on this side does the exact same thing, similar just like that. But those bags are mainly coming from customers that are here in Washington. 

This other one we use for what we call transfer bags. The bags will stay there until it's time that 45 to an hour timeframe. Then we'll take 'em out to the aircraft so they can actually load the airplane.

Emily: The bags also don't have to wait in line in the bathroom or get snacks.

Matt: That's right. Yeah. The bags don't have any of those inconvenient human uh, needs. 

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Emily: So once you land in your final destination, assuming your bag is on the exact same airplane as you. What happens once the bag gets offloaded? Let's assume that Thomas the Tank Engine, small cart situation.

Matt: Yeah. So you know, now that you've gotten to your final destination, you're at your destination airport. The cart with the bags is gonna go back into the airport and your bags are gonna go straight onto that baggage claim conveyor belt where you're gonna be reunited with it and take it and go to your hotel or to your cousin's house, or wherever it is that you're going. 

Emily: Okay, so now I wanna ask you some questions about any insider scoops that Jim gave you about bags and how do I make sure my wheels don't fall off and like, Jim's been doing this for 30 years. Like, what did Jim tell you that the rest of us need to know about checking bags?

Matt: Yeah, well, I mean there is this terminology called baggage hygiene, which I think is kind of a, a nice way of describing it, but like what you can do with your bag to make sure that it goes through the system easily, without damage, without causing any trouble. 

It actually would be easier for the baggage handlers if bags didn't have wheels. But at this point, wheels are here to stay and they're not going anywhere. But still, you know, there are things you can do

Noise of Baggage Carousel 

Jim: A square bag always helps us, right? Um. But we know that's not the case. Everyone has different sizes of everything. The, the thing that, um, helps us is if it's a duffel bag or if it's a, um, like a round bag to take all the handles, like you're carrying straps off 'cause what happens is it gets caught on things.

It'll get caught on the belt loader. It'll get caught in the, in the, um, the belt systems of the, uh, up front, like when you're checking your bag in. And what happens is the bag gets stuck and then that's when they get, um, they could get ripped, you know? And we don't want that to happen to your bag.

So the hygiene of the bag is, is, is important to make sure that if you do have other compartments, you know, bags nowadays have 15 different zippers or compartments on it, that zip up on the sides, make sure they're all zipped, make sure there's stuff not hanging out of them. It, it really helps us to be able to securely get your bag to where it needs to go.

Matt:  So assuming that you've practiced proper bag hygiene, you are, um, now at your airport. What do you do? Uh, if your bag isn't there? What has happened to your bag? 

Emily: Yeah, I mean, I think this is really interesting and what I love all of the apps that these airlines are creating now because of that 1%. Chance that your bag gets lost. I feel like there's even a smaller percentage of the bags that are actually lost-lost. 

Do you know what I mean? Matt? Like when you, when your bag isn't there, you now have these apps that are like, yep. 'cause your bag's in Atlanta and you're not. 

Matt: Right. 

Emily: And so when you're going into the baggage office to talk to somebody about filing a claim about your bag, there's like a lot less stress and panic  'cause you're like, okay, well it's just in a city that I am not in. It's not a ghost bag. Do they use that term to Jim call anything a ghost bag?

Can we make that? Can we make ghost bag happen?

Matt: I, think that you coined that. I think that's your thing, the ghost bag 

Emily: Matt, stop trying to make fetch happen. 

Matt: laughs, Um, yeah, so you're right. Like a lot of the times your bag's not there and you'll file a lost bag claim, but the airline might actually know where it is. And in fact, you know, they, they do keep track of any bags that are potentially gonna be considered lost. Like if, if they get scanned and they're not where they're supposed to be, they flag those. By the time you file that claim, they've already identified your bag as a potential problem. 

Jim: ​If for some reason we don't have that bag, we can now start looking for that bag, right? So, and then we can see, okay, it was last scanned in the bag room.

So we'd call over here and say, Hey, you know, do you have this bag? Da, da da, da. And they'll say, yes, no, or it's on its way.

Emily: Yeah, and I think that's what I love the apps for is that in many ways you have the majority of the same information that the baggage office does, and for me, it's been a much lower stress level when I'm walking into that baggage claim office. 'cause it's like, ‘so my bag's in Atlanta?’ and they're like, ‘yep it is.’ And they're like, ‘great, we can get it to you tomorrow.’ 

Matt: Yeah. And you know, we've really emphasized the sort of technology side of things. But I do wanna emphasize as, as we close, that this is incredibly, uh, physical work, despite the fact that it's so enabled by technology.

The, the folks who are doing this work are getting a full day, full body workout. And Jim told us it's like, he tells all of his, his new trainees, cancel your gym memberships. You're not gonna need them anymore. 

Emily: Well, it's, I think, I think what's really valuable to kind of understand about the whole process is that for as much of it's that is automated, there's still an enormous number of hands involved. There's still an a lot of humans involved in the process of making sure that bags are getting to their final destinations.

Matt: That's right. And it was a real, privilege to watch some of these crews at work, um, and to sort of get to see how they do what they do. And then, you know, when they weren't working to get to peek our heads into those, uh, cargo bays and see exactly how, uh, they're laid out. 

So, you know, thanks to not just Jim, but to all of the folks who were out on the tarmac that day, um, who we got to see.

And, you know, we did get to yield for a mobile lounge slash people mover at one point, which I thought was really cool to be out there driving around with the people movers. 

Emily: laughs

AirSpace theme up then under

Emily: AirSpace is from the National Air and Space Museum. It's produced by Jennifer Weingart and mixed by Tarek Fouda. 

AirSpace is hosted by Dr. Matt Shindell and me, Dr. Emily Martin. 

Our managing producer is Erika Novak. Our production coordinator is Joe Gurr and our social media manager is Amy Stamm. 

A big thank you to our guest in this episode Jim Decker from United Airlines.

Additional thanks to Holly Williamson in our comms office and Lina Mizerek at United for setting up our tour.

Did you know the transcripts of our episodes include citations and extra fun facts, Matt, we love a citation. 

Matt: laughs

Emily: You can find them linked in the show notes. For additional content, photos, and more follow AirSpacePod on Instagram and X. We're also on YouTube shorts! Check us out on the Museum's page or sign up for our monthly newsletter using the link in the show notes.

AirSpace is sponsored by Lockheed Martin and distributed by PRX.

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