I'm a Heathrow engineer

A HEATHROW worker has revealed how laser beams help your luggage make it from the check-in counter to your aircraft.

A lot of people wonder where their suitcase goes once the conveyor belt takes it away from them at the airport.

Now, thanks to airport engineer and Tiktoker The Airport Guy (@mo_t_ivate), we have a better idea of what happens to our bags between us handing them over and picking them up again at the other side.

In a video he explained how a laser beam shining across the conveyor belt helps guide it in the right direction.

He said: "What if I told you that this tiny little laser is actually what tells you where the bags are in the baggage system?

"You see, the way that it works is this little laser will shine a beam of light, and every time a bag comes across, it will cut out the connection between the sensor and the laser.

"That will tell the system that there is a bag coming across there and then what it will do is it will reference that up to the brains of the system and say, 'I know that that bag is currently going through this location'.

"And it will do that for every single bag. So it tracks a space in time for this bag, and it knows that it's expecting it right here at this time.

"And once it hits, it says, 'perfect, I know where this bag is, it's on track', and it'll send it all the way to your aircraft."

The lasers are part of the RAIN RFID tracking system that is now the industry standard at all airports worldwide.

Each piece of luggage will have a chip placed on it at check-in, inside the baggage label, which will allow the system to work out where every single piece of luggage is, as well as where it's supposed to go.

Impinj explained: "A RAIN RFID tag — comprising a tiny radio chip and a foil-like antenna — is embedded into each baggage label.

"Handheld and fixed RAIN RFID readers and gateways are installed at transition points in a bag’s journey: where it is checked, loaded, unloaded, transferred, and delivered.

"As a tagged bag passes by, a RAIN RFID reader scans the tag and sends its identity, location, security status, and other data to the airline’s system in real-time."

This system not only speeds up the process of scanning luggage and getting it from one place to another more efficiently, it's also much more accurate than what was in place before.

Previously, barcodes had to be scanned, which was difficult to do automatically, as they needed to be fully visible so that readers could scan them properly. They could also only process one bag at a time.

Now, with the laser system, multiple bags can be scanned, with a more than 99% level of accuracy.

Meanwhile, this baggage handler revealed what it's really like in the hold of a plane where their luggage is stored.

And another baggage worker revealed why they judge passengers based on what luggage they're using.