DIA's Baggage Boondoggle Still Haunting City

As recently as January, 2008, the city of Denver is still throwing money into the DIA baggage system money pit which has haunted local politicians for some 15 years, and it is still wringing its hands over installation of a permanent baggage system.

Quotes from the Rocky Mountain News' story of January 12, 2008:

The system, once touted as the most advanced in the world, had problems from the start and never worked as intended. Officials planned it as the main system to serve all airlines at DIA, but United was the only carrier that used it and then only for outbound luggage.

It was one of the reasons DIA opened 16 months behind schedule and almost $2 billion over budget. Some estimates say the system's price tag has stretched to $700 million, compared with initial projections of $250 million. The airport doesn't have exact figures but has said it will compile that data for council members.

United stopped using it in 2005 and reverted to a manual process. The airport then struck a deal to pay off $110 million that United owed on the system.

DIA is now laying plans to install a new baggage system in coming years, one that will use more conventional technology and methods.

Even to this day, the old baggage system haunts Denver.

"The news keeps getting worse," Councilman Charlie Brown said at a recent City Council meeting, referring to the fact that DIA will have to spend more money to remove part of the system. "I mean, we can't get away from this baggage system. This is unbelievable."


Airport albatross

Costs of a baggage system that never worked right:

$250 million initial projected price tag

$100 million additional construction costs

$341 million additional interest payments to try to get the system working and build a separate, manual one for other airlines

$18 million maximum for steel removal, including parts of the baggage system

$700 million estimated actual cost

Source


Back in 1994 or so when DIA was not yet open and the city of Denver was already in damage-control mode, free public tours were offered of the airport and I was one who pounced on the opportunity to wander the place. In one of the concourses, I noticed that some signage was wrong and pointed toward things that weren't there, but the most entertaining part of that day was when in the terminal I came across the baggage test area in what is now the Frontier Airlines check-in counters. The area in front of the counter was a literal graveyard of baggage; mangled bags, torn, missing sides, wheels either torn off completely or partly ripped off, belongings such as clothing, blenders, and hair dryers lying either loose or sticking out of mangled bags, most bags were either barely holding together and those that were not were duct taped shut. Some suitcases missed zippered tops that were either a few feet away or nowhere visible at all. Some bags even had dark skid marks on them. Few bags showed no damage at all. If only I'd have taken a camera, what delights I could have recorded! About 30 of us viewed the scene, alternately laughing and shaking our heads.