At 13:50 -0700 8/4/96, Bill Stewart wrote:
My guess about how they'll be used is to replace the bar-code stickers used by many baggage-handling systems - they'll stick one on at checkin, corresponding to the number on your ticket, track them when they load them on the plane (so they know that all the bags correspond to people expected to get on the plane, as well as knowing the bags are getting on the correct plane), and track the tickets to make sure that all the people expected to get on the plane actually do get on (I think they use bar-code readers or OCR today, and that'll probably continue.)
They better hold off loading the containers with the luggage until they lock down/up the plane so they can verify who got on (and can pull any unaccompanied luggage). It is either that or unloading the plane if there is a missing passenger.