DIA plans new auto baggage system

Conveyor belts to replace original, now-unused setup

Chris Walsh, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 31, 2007 at midnight

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Denver International Airport plans to install a new automated baggage system in coming years that will replace the original, now-defunct version that never worked as planned.

Plans call for a system that will route outbound and inbound luggage using conventional methods such as conveyor belts rather than largely untested technology.

Currently, airline workers manually load luggage onto carts that they then drive between the main terminal and the planes.

The $30 million system will connect the terminal to one of the concourses and could be up and running by late 2010 or early 2011, officials said. DIA says it could then expand the system throughout the airport, although there are no plans to do so at this point.

"Certainly we one day expect to have a baggage system that serves all the concourses, but not until we demonstrate that the system works and examine its cost effectiveness," said Woods Allee, DIA's assistant manager of aviation for maintenance and engineering.

Allee said the airport has not yet determined which concourse - or airlines - the system will serve.

The move is part of $1.2 billion of planned expansion projects and upgrades DIA will fund in coming years primarily through bond sales. The airport is looking to spend $98.5 million for baggage improvements and upgrades, which include designing and building the new system and disposing of the skeleton of the old one.

The previous automated baggage system was once heralded as the most advanced in the world, but it was trouble from the get-go. The system had numerous problems that delayed the opening of DIA and led to huge cost overruns that pushed its price tag to $700 million.

It was intended to one day serve all airlines at DIA. But United was the only carrier that ever used it, and then just for outbound luggage.

United scrapped the system in 2005, instead reverting to a manual process.

After United made the switch, the number of checked bags that failed to make it on departing United planes fell by 30 percent within several months of the move. The Chicago-based carrier also said the number of bags that missed outbound flights because of system malfunctions plummeted by 90 percent.

The airport struck a deal to pay off $110 million that United owed related to the automated baggage system. In exchange, United agreed to route more connecting traffic through Denver.

All the debt "has been written off as an impaired asset," said Stan Koniz, DIA's chief financial officer.

United said it is still considering its options for routing baggage in Denver.

"We want to work with the airport to cost effectively improve our operations and the experience of our customers," the airline said in an e-mailed statement.

DIA is reworking its master plan as it prepares for growth over the next decade. As part of that process, the airport is expanding Concourse C by 10 gates and building a commuter facility there. DIA expects that Southwest Airlines will take some of those gates.

The airport also plans to add more parking areas and spend $57 million on a FasTracks rail station. DIA expects that both Great Lakes Aviation and Continental Airlines will move from Concourse A to the C concourse in coming years, which would free up space for Frontier Airlines.

It's in the bag

DIA will spend more than $90 million on baggage system improvements in coming years, including:

• A new $30 million automated baggage system that will route bags between the terminal and one of the concourses. It will be expandable to the whole airport.

• Moving explosives detection equipment now located on the B Concourse to the terminal, where the devices for checking bags headed for the A and C concourses are located.

• Demolishing and removing parts of the old, failed automated baggage system.

walshc@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2744

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