Alaska Airlines to roll out NFC bag tags

Passengers travelling on flights operated by Alaska Airlines will be among the first to transfer their flight details to an NFC-enabled electronic bag tag attached to their checked luggage by tapping their NFC smartphone on the device, avoiding the need to print a physical tag when they arrive at the airport.

At the airport users will be able to scan the electronic bag tag at a self bag-drop point directly rather than having to first print a paper tag and attach it to their luggage before dropping it off for loading.

The activation is done by simply touching the phone used for check-in to the electronic bag tag, which has an antenna that powers and reads the information transmitted from the phone.