Hong Kong airport rolls out 45-second smartphone express bag drop service with Cathay passengers first to benefit

Smartphone express bag drop service will reduce the time for handling luggage from two minutes at counters

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Cathay Pacific passengers will be able to use the service from Thursday. Photo: Eugene Lee

Published: 7:06pm, 31 Jul 2024Updated: 9:37am, 1 Aug 2024

Hong Kong airport is rolling out an all-in-one smartphone express bag drop service which will reduce passengers’ self-help process to only 45 seconds and plans to extend it to 80 per cent of airlines within two years.

The service, effective from Thursday across all Cathay Pacific Airways flights except for those to the United States, is expected to greatly enhance the airport’s efficiency and manpower by reducing the time for handling checked luggage. Cathay subsidiary HK Express started offering the service in November last year under a pilot scheme.

Chris Au Young, the airport’s general manager for innovation and data insights, said on Wednesday that the new service provided an all-in-one seamless departure for passengers and would reduce the time for handling checked baggage from two minutes at self-drop-in counters to 45 seconds.

Passengers will tag their own luggage and place it on a conveyor belt at the counter. Photo: Eugene Lee

He added that the new service would make Hong Kong International Airport the first in the world to provide passengers with a seamless departure process via smartphones from check-in, checked baggage, security clearance checks to boarding.

“At present, this service will only be provided by Cathay and HK Express. We will gradually extend it to other airlines such as Hong Kong Airlines by the end of this year,” he said.

“Hopefully within the next two years, the service will be extended to about 80 per cent of airlines in Hong Kong.”

Au Young said if all of the city’s airlines joined the scheme, the existing 120 self bag drop counters would be converted to smartphone express versions.