American Airlines (AA), with regional partner American Eagle, offers an average of nearly 6,700 flights daily to 350 destinations in 50 countries. At Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), AA’s market share is over 85% of the 73 million annual passengers. Operating out of all five terminals at DFW, AA is responsible for the maintenance and operation of the baggage handling system (BHS) in three of the five terminals.

To ensure continuity of operational readiness, DFW and AA embarked upon a comprehensive evaluation of the BHS in each terminal. Included in the evaluation, which was completed in 2019, was a list of recommended improvements to provide a minimum of 10 years of operation. Studdiford Technical Solutions, LLC (STS) was engaged to support AA throughout the evaluation and report process. Following DFW’s approval of the report, STS was again engaged by AA in an expanded role as Program Manager to implement the BHS Improvements.

The BHS Improvements program includes work in all five terminals at DFW, which are in operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Due to the program’s complexity, large number of stakeholders, and to minimize the impact on customer service in these public-facing projects, STS is managing all stakeholder coordination and project phasing.

The project scope includes both general construction and BHS construction. The BHS construction includes replacing entire inbound conveyors and carousels, replacing pushers and high speed diverters, upgrades to programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and PLC programs, replacing upper-level computer systems, and implementing new camera-based automatic bag tag readers.