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Virgin Australia is rolling out its baggage tracking service on almost 70 per cent of its checked flights following a successful trial, becoming the first Australian airline to offer the service.
As of Monday, baggage tracking is now available on select Virgin flights departing most airports on the eastern seaboard, as well as Launceston, Hobart and Adelaide. Perth flights are expected to have baggage tracking available soon.
Tracking is available through the Virgin Australia app, which will send push notifications at various stages including when a bag is checked in, transferred to an international partner airline, and available for collection; the app will also advise which carousel the bag can be picked up from.
“We know the potential of lost baggage is a concern for travellers globally and anticipate this announcement will give many guests that extra level of comfort knowing where their bag is at every step of the journey,” said Virgin Australia group chief customer and digital officer, Paul Jones.
“We are also proud to be able to launch this new feature while having some of the lowest figures in the market when it comes to mishandled or lost bags, with a mishandled baggage rate of just 1.5 per 1,000 guests – five times better than the last recorded industry average.”
The tracking tool is part of what Virgin bills as an investment of over $400 million in “customer experience improvements and new technology”.
This includes a $110 million overhaul of the seat configuration for its existing fleet of older 737-800 aircraft, which will see one of five rows of premium economy ‘X’ seats removed to make way for between six and 12 traditional economy seats.
It was part of a raft of changes aiming to make the flying experience for passengers consistent between the older 737-800 aircraft and the upcoming fleet of 33 MAXs, split between 8 MAX 8s and 25 MAX 10s.
The changes to the 800s will include the following:
