A Big Step Forward to Improve Airport Operation
Managing ground support equipment (GSE) at a busy international airport is no small feat. Baggage carts, dollies, and luggage tugs are constantly in motion across vast terminals and aprons, and without real-time visibility, losing track of them is almost inevitable. The consequences are familiar: staff spending valuable time searching for equipment, rising replacement costs, and operational delays that ripple across the entire ground handling process.
This is exactly the challenge our solution was built to solve.
Last week, our team was on-site at Düsseldorf Airport. In partnership with HiSERV GmbH, we successfully deployed 750 Hati asset trackers and 750 Skoll condition-monitoring sensors across baggage carts, 5ft dollies, and 10ft dollies. Each unit transmits near real-time location and load status via NB-IoT, GPS, or Wi-Fi, giving the airline complete visibility into every asset from a single platform.
Hati and Skoll installed on a luggage cart
Hati installed on a dolly
How Does It Work?
Our solution combines the Skoll sensor and the Hati tracker, connected via Bluetooth. The Skoll sensor periodically measures fill level and load detection, then shares the data with Hati over BLE. Hati then transmits everything to the Connect Platform via an LPWAN network (NB-IoT, Sigfox, or LTE-M), where operators can view alerts, analytics, and asset status in near real-time, accessible from both desktop and mobile.
Our products currently support connectivity via BLE, NB-IoT, Sigfox, and LTE-M, with more connectivity options to be added in the future.
What You See on the Connect Platform
Once the data flows into the Connect Platform, operators get a clear, unified view of their entire fleet. The dashboard provides a near-real-time summary of asset status across the operation. The asset information page provides detailed data for each unit, including location history and condition data. And the Geozone page makes it easy to locate empty dollies nearby, without anyone having to leave their desk.
Conditions
Beyond location, the platform also captures each asset's condition in near real-time. Fill level, load state, and presence data are all accessible at a glance, giving ground handling teams the full picture they need to make faster, smarter decisions.
*This photo is one of the demo screens and not related to aviation tracking
No more walking the grounds.
No more manual logs.
Just full transparency, at a glance.
The Business Case for Asset Tracking
The business case for asset tracking is well established. According to IATA, industry-wide adoption of tracking technology is projected to save airlines $5 billion by 2026, with initial deployments already reducing mishandled baggage by 25%.
Real-world results back this up: Delta Air Lines reported a 13% reduction in mishandling rates and a 10% improvement in baggage loading speed after deploying RFID tracking across its operations.
Aviation is now the fastest-growing vertical in the asset tracking market, driven by the need to reduce turnaround times and improve ground operations efficiency.
Complete visibility into your assets means fewer losses, fewer misplacements, and less downtime, all of which translate directly into cost savings. In airports, logistics hubs, and ports, globally connected asset tracking enables near-universal visibility and control across international networks, improving asset utilization, security, and operational efficiency through real-time data exchange and unified analytics.
As we like to say: you can only manage what you can measure.
Source: IATA via Impinj: https://www.impinj.com/library/blog/how-airlines-track-bags-and-avoid-losing-baggage-with-rain-rfid
Creativity Is the Key to Innovation
The challenges on airport grounds go beyond dollies and baggage carts. Any piece of unfixed equipment, towbars, stair trucks, luggage tugs, and more, can be difficult to locate, monitor, and manage across a busy apron. If it moves, it can be tracked.
Every airport operation is different, and so are the use cases for our tracking solutions. We work closely with each customer to understand their specific environment and pain points, then apply our expertise to develop the right solution for their situation. Our team brings specialized knowledge across industries, and we take pride in finding creative, practical answers to real operational challenges.
Whether you are managing a fleet of luggage tugs, keeping tabs on towbars across multiple terminals, or monitoring the condition of equipment in real time, our solutions are built to adapt to your needs.
Hati installed on a towbar
Hati installed on a luggage tug
Ready to Bring This Level of Visibility to Your Operations?
Whether you are managing hundreds or thousands of assets, our solution scales to fit your needs.
Get in touch with our team and let's explore what smarter asset tracking could look like for you.
A Note of Thanks
We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the entire HiSERV GmbH and Düsseldorf Airport teams. It has been a privilege to work alongside two such professional aviation companies, and tackling these challenges together has been a genuine learning experience for all of us. We deeply appreciate your trust and cooperation, and we look forward to continuing this journey with you.
We also want to give a well-deserved shoutout to our own team members, Oliver and Sandeep, who flew out to Düsseldorf to deploy 1,500 trackers and bring this project to life. Your dedication and hard work made all the difference. Thank you.
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