Passenger Terminal World | June 2025
Helen Norman
15 July 2025
Passenger Terminal World looks at the latest innovations in baggage handling – from quick wins to radical new approaches
Each year, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol handles approximately 53 million items of baggage across more than 30km of baggage belts. On its busiest days, around 180,000 bags can pass through its four baggage halls. To ensure these are handled efficiently, Schiphol is continually investing in expansion and innovation and today has one of the most advanced baggage handling systems in the world.
“The future of baggage handling at Schiphol is fully automated,” according to Henk Brandsma, the airport’s strategic process developer for baggage handling. Robots and state-of-the-art technology currently handle the end-to-end process, but he acknowledges that full automation is a long-term journey, and says that in the short term, “quick win” improvements need to be made to ensure baggage handling quality.
“We invest for a number of reasons,” says Maurice van Hooff, baggage project manager at Schiphol. “To increase the capacity of our baggage system by making more efficient use of the current space, to ensure continuity and to improve the quality of work for our employees.”
Schiphol had already undertaken several developments related to the employee experience but recently accelerated work in this area due to updated regulations in the Netherlands. In mid-2023, the Dutch Labour Inspectorate enforced rules that limit the daily workload of baggage handlers in airports and require baggage handling companies to provide workers with assistance and relief, including the use of devices to assist with heavy lifting. “The move sped up the introduction of new technologies to ease manual workloads in the baggage halls at Schiphol,” van Hooff explains...
Further details: Passenger Terminal World : June 2025
