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Denver Airport Baggage Handling System Case Study – Calleam Consulting

Case Study – Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System – An
illustration of ineffectual decision making
C alleam Consulting Ltd – Why Technology Projects Fail

Synopsis
Dysfunctional decision making is the poison that kills technology projects and the Denver Airport
Baggage System project in the 1990’s is aclassic example. Although several case studies have been
written about the Denver project, the following paper re-examines the case by looking at the key
decisions that set the project on the path to disaster and the forces behind those decisions.

Background
What was to be the world’s largest automated airport baggage handling system, became a classic story
in how technology projects cango wrong. Faced with the need for greater airport capacity, the city of
Denver elected to construct a new state of the art airport that would cement Denver’s position as an air
transportation hub. Covering a land area of 140 Km2, the airport was to be the largest in the United
States and have the capacity to handle more than 50m passengers annually [1,2].
The airport's baggage handling systemwas a critical component in the plan. By automating baggage
handling, aircraft turnaround time was to be reduced to as little as 30 minutes [1]. Faster turnaround
meant more efficient operations and was a cornerstone of the airports competitive advantage.
Despite the good intentions the plan rapidly dissolved as
underestimation of the project’s complexity resulted in
snowballing problems andpublic humiliation for everyone
involved. Thanks mainly to problems with the baggage system,
the airport’s opening was delayed by a full 16 months.
Expenditure to maintain the empty airport and interest charges
on construction loans cost the city of Denver $1.1M per day
throughout the delay [3].

System at a glance:
1.
2.
3.
4.

88 airport gates in 3
concourses
17 miles of track and5 miles of
conveyor belts
3,100 standard carts + 450
oversized carts
14 million feet of wiring
Network of more than 100 PC’s
to control flow of carts
5,000 electric motors
2,700 photo cells, 400 radio
receivers and 59 laser arrays

The embarrassing missteps along the way included an impromptu
5.
demonstration of the system to the media which illustrated how
the system crushed bags,disgorged content and how two carts
6.
moving at high speed reacted when they crashed into each other
7.
[4]. When opening day finally arrived, the system was just a
shadow of the original plan. Rather than automating all 3
concourses into one integrated system, the system was used in a
single concourse, by a single airline and only for outbound flights [5]. All other baggage handling wasperformed using simple conveyor belts plus a manual tug and trolley system that was hurriedly built
when it became clear that the automated system would never achieve its goals.

Although the remnants of the system soldiered on for 10 years, the system never worked well and in
August 2005, United Airlines announced that they would abandon the system completely [6]. The $1
million per monthmaintenance costs exceeded the monthly cost of a manual tug and trolley system.
© Copyright 2008 Calleam Consulting Ltd, all rights reserved

Denver Airport Baggage Handling System Case Study – Calleam Consulting

Chronology of events:
Denver International Airport (DIA) Baggage System Development Timeline [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Nov 1989
Oct 1990
Feb 1991
Jun 1991
Jun 1991
Summer 1991
Fall1991
Early 1992
Apr 1992

Aug 1992

Sep 1992
Oct 1992
Jan 1993
Feb 1993
Sep 1993
31 Oct 1993
19 Dec 1993
Jan 1994
9 Mar 1994
Mar 1994

Apr 1994
Apr 1994
May 1994
15 May 1994
May 1994
Aug 1994
Aug 1994
28 Feb 1995
Aug 2005

Work starts on the construction of the airport
City of Denver engages Breier Neidle Patrone Associates to analyse feasibility of building an...