Richard Branson Says Go RFID

Filed in archive Case Studies on February 21, 2006

Last summer, in August 2005, Virgin Atlantic airways announced it was using RFID to track airplane parts.

At that time the company revealed it was using RFID to track the parts in the warehouse, by affixing RFID tags to containers and bins containing the airplane parts. As this article in RFID Journal published at the time notes:

"Once the containers and bins are tagged at the warehouse's entrance and inspection area, the items and bins are either placed on storage racks or sent out of the warehouse for immediate use on an airplane. Before a part is brought onto the plane for installation, however, the tagged container is discarded, so a tag never follows an item onto the aircraft."

Well, lo and behold, six months later it turns out that those tags did in fact make it into the airplanes. If you are riding in a Virgin plane anytime soon, you will be riding in a vehicle where every part of the airplane is tagged. This report today in ZDNet UK explains the current status of using RFID at Virgin Airways:

"Gareth Lewis, IT services director at Virgin Group, said on Monday that RFID was helping Virgin Atlantic to keep its planes in the air longer.

'Every part of the aeroplane is tagged with RFID. Now, we can point a gun at it and take a snapshot of all its component parts -- it's a really quick and efficient way of seeing what's in the plane,' explained Lewis, appearing on a panel at the UK Technology Innovation & Growth Forum."