Changi Airport’s chief ground-handling and in-flight catering service provider, Singapore Airport Terminal Services (SATS) has incorporated a new baggage location service in its travel app, “Ready To Travel”.
This new service will allow passengers to track and retrieve information of their lost bags, anywhere in the world.
SATS has announced that this is the first of such service to be offered by airline services in Asia.
As stated on their website: “Bag Locate is a service that assists passengers in locating bags misdirected by any airline. And in the event that the mishandled bag cannot be located after 96 hours, passengers will be compensated.”
Users of the app can now book more than 400 airport lounges in over 100 countries as compared to only being able to book four of SATS lounges located in Changi Airport.
Eileen Tan, SATS’s Vice President of consumer services said that SATS’s extensive network of ground handling operations and partnerships have allowed them to offer this new service to their customers.
She said that the team behind the app works closely with ground handling partners and provides users with constant updates on the status of their lost luggage. These updates are delivered via emails, which contain information such as the current location of their luggage and the time that they can expect to retrieve their luggage.
Additional services have been included in the app such as itinerary planning functions with co-travellers.
Users can also provide information on their whereabouts in the app and constantly update it to allow the app’s team to better plan out the time taken for the luggage to be retrieved.
This baggage location service, however, only complements travel insurance but does not replace it.
Keith Loke, SATS consumer services’ head of marketing said, “Although people do buy travel insurance, what we found from talking to travellers is that nearly all would prefer getting their bags back to claiming the insurance pay-out.”
While the app is free to download, users will have to pay a basic fee of S$12 upon which they will be guaranteed a 96-hour time period for their luggage to be retrieved.
This time period will be activated from the time the flight has landed. Each user is only allowed to retrieve up to two lost bags.
If the lost luggage cannot be located after 96 hours, users will be compensated with payouts of between S$1,100 to S$2,200.
This app is only made available to Singapore users.
