Air baggage system too fast

Press, 27 February 1980, Page 6

Air baggage system too fast

The two baggage conveyers at Christchurch Airport’s new overseas-arrivals terminal are causing delays. They will probably be enlarged by the City Council at a cost of $45,000 after a public-utilities committee recommendation yesterday. In past years problems have been caused by passengers waiting for baggage. Now it is the other way round: baggage becomes stacked up and sometimes jams the conveyors while passengers wait to be “processed.”

Passengers wait aboard international aircraft for 10 minutes after landing while the Ministry of Agriculture does precautionary spraying but baggage automatically sprayed in the holds when

the aircraft takes off can be off-loaded immediately. The two conveyers are not large enough to handle the entire baggage load from a Jumbo jet at one time, and so some bags are left waiting in containers after conveyers have been filled and while passengers are still going through their first Customs checks.

Councillors were told that even the enlarged conveyers would not be able to hold the entire load from a Jumbo jet but they would improve the system. At present, when some large bags and packs made a complete circuit without being picked up, they could jam the conveyer as they reached the point where they had been loaded.