I think we'd have to make changes to all the baggage systems in the world to get it to work properly. A common agreed-upon standard is critical, though that's being worked on so it's under control. But the important thing is that you've got to have RFID at both ends. So if you're shipping luggage to airports with RFID at one end and not at the other, you've got to have both RFID and barcode. This is always a problem with any technology migration: you end up with two systems running concurrently, so the migration costs are huge.

RFID may see wider deployment in other areas'for example: keeping track of cargo pallets and containers. Engineering spare parts is another high potential area. Cargo itself could be useful [for RFID] but cargo's quite complicated, because there are different ways to consolidate cargo, and air waybill numbers and things like that, so it's not straightforward. There's potential, but you have the same issue: is [RFID] at both ends?

If you look to the future, you can see that RFID'or the next generation, whatever replaces RFID'is an opportunity. I think that, in general, RFID is a struggling technology. People have seized on it, and can conceive of the benefits, but they aren't necessarily aware of all the issues associated with it. I'm sure if you look back, 10 or 15 years in the future, you'll wonder why ever used those silly old barcodes!

CWHK: What new technologies are you following?

EN: We're working very hard on things associated with self-service at the moment: e-tickets, improved forms of bar-coding, getting away from the magstripe-ticket model of boarding passes. The industry is moving towards 2-D barcodes, and while there are as many issues associated with that as with RFID, the payoff is higher. We do have trouble with readership-levels of magstripe readers at boarding gates, and 2-D barcodes will enable people to issue [their own] boarding passes at home. You'll be able to print them out on your own computer-printer.