Virgin gets jump on rival in bag tracking

Virgin Australia has gone one up on Qantas, expanding its baggage tracking tool to all domestic and international routes.

After previously only operating on a portion of the airline’s domestic network, the tracker can now be used for any flight.

The tracker works through the Virgin Australia app, sending notifications when bags are checked in, loaded on to aircraft, transferred to a partner airline and available for collection at the final destination.

It’s not quite the same as airtags; ground crews must scan the barcodes on the bags and the information is then sent to the app.

Virgin Australia chief customer and digital officer Paul Jones said the tool was already proving popular, having been used more than 1.3 million times since it was first piloted in May last year.

“Australians find comfort in the ability to track food deliveries, postal deliveries, technology, even their heart rate, all via apps, and it made sense for travellers to be able to do the same thing when flying Virgin Australia,” Mr Jones said.

“By further enhancing our Australian-first baggage tracking technology to include all international services and additional notifications, we are giving guests the peace of mind to know where their baggage is at every step of the journey.”

He said the tool was part of Virgin Australia’s mission to “provide that extra level of service and care”, along with other enhancements such as “rapid rebook”, which he said allowed guests to self manage their bookings in the event of disruption.