Frankfurt airport's 100 km baggage conveyor moves 18 km/h

Beneath Germany's largest airport runs a conveyor network of roughly 100 kilometres that carries passenger baggage, according to the airport's baggage control centre. Suitcases move at up to 18 kilometres per hour, passing switches and crossing several levels before reaching an aircraft.

The system begins at check-in, where each bag receives a tag bearing a barcode. Once a bag disappears below ground, the barcode is read and its flight number, departure time and destination are matched to a route through the network, Hubert Grünewald, head of operations and procedures at the Frankfurt baggage control centre, said in an interview. Bags checked in locally first pass through security screening by X-ray before either heading towards the aircraft or into an early-baggage store.

That storage is deliberately unsorted. "We run a controlled chaos," Grünewald said, describing how bags are held on multiple levels without being grouped by flight, and dispatched on their final route only as departure approaches. The system relies on numerous switches; before each one, the container is read again.

Roughly 300 people handle maintenance of the installation, work that takes place in areas passengers never see.