WorldTracer ready to support bag tracing in Chinese

Airlines serving China to benefit from SITA’s localized bag-tracing service.

WorldTracer, the world’s leading automated service for tracing lost and mishandled baggage, has been adapted for the growing Chinese market. IT provider SITA today announced that the service is available in Chinese which will dramatically reduce the training time of baggage agents for Chinese airlines, ground handlers and airlines flying into China.

Ilya Gutlin, SITA President, Asia Pacific, said: “As passenger numbers rise in China, airlines, ground handlers and airports need global services provided as easily as possible. English is the official language of the industry but we at SITA felt that localizing WorldTracer for the Chinese market would speed its adoption in this growing region.

“Because WorldTracer is a community service, the more airlines that use it across the globe the better the service SITA can provide to all. Our team in the SITA China Solution Center has localized the service and WorldTracer can now be accessed in Chinese which we expect will encourage widespread adoption.”

WorldTracer is used by more than 450 airlines and ground handlers collating reports of missing bags and delivering updated information on actual locations from more than 100 airports around the world. With IATA forecasting that of the 877 million additional global air travelers expected to fly in 2015 than in 2010, more than 212 million will be on journeys within or connected to China, effective bag tracing will be required in China to ensure global passenger standards are maintained. WorldTracer’s passenger-facing services are already available in 12 languages, including Chinese, and the agent interface and support materials are now available in English and Chinese.

During 2011, WorldTracer recorded 8.99 mishandled bags per thousand passengers, down from 12.07 in 2010. The rate has more than halved since 2007 when it was 18.88 bags per thousand.