Tanzania Airports Authority (TAA) has announced plans to upgrade its systems to promote efficiency in service provision at the airports. The upgrade is expected to promote customer service management with the arrival of self-service check-in, baggage reconciliation,sophisticated flight information displays within the country’s three major airports.   SITA,an aviation IT specialist, has therefore been contracted by TAA to lead the $20 million multi-airport systems integration project which is expected to attract many world-class services to Tanzania for the first time.In this seven-year deal, SITA will provide systems for Terminals 1 and 2 at Julius Nyerere International Airport and at Mwanza and Arusha airports. These include Tanzania’s first common use self-service kiosks (CUSS) which will allow passengers to check-in with any airline from any kiosk. Another significant development will be the introduction of SITA’s Baggage Reconciliation System. Passenger-bag reconciliation will ensures the right bag gets on the right plane and assigned to the right passenger. Since mishandling of baggage at airports has been cited now as global problem, the airline industry has been losing USD $2.9 billion each year.Tanzania is expected to be one of the few African countries benefit from the SITA’s technology that has been proved to reduce mishandled baggage by an average rate of  5 to 15 percent.

 Prosper Tesha, Director General, TAA, said: “This is a significant investment by TAA into the country’s infrastructure and supports the vital travel and tourism sector which contributes 9percent to Tanzania’s Gross Domestic Product each year. “By choosing one supplier, SITA, that has extensive global experience and can provide the integration of all the latest airport technologies, we are able to implement all these improvements in a co-ordinated and cost-efficient manner. The significant upgrades allow us to maximize the airports’ capacity in a cost-effective way and to improve the passenger experience.” Khodr Akil, SITA, Regional Vice President, Africa, said: “This is a great step forward for Tanzania’s airports. Along with SITA’s CUSS check-in kiosks and baggage reconciliation services, passengers will enjoy improved flight information displays.  “Behind the scenes there will also be major improvements which will result in a smoother passenger experience. TAA has selected SITA’s airport operations database and events information management system, both of which will enable faster and more informed management decisions.” TAA is also upgrading the baggage handling equipment and airport communications network at Julius Nyerere International Airport Terminal 2. At Arusha and Mwanza Airports, SITA’s Common Use Terminal Equipment (CUTE) and local Departure Control System will provide more speedy passenger check-in:“In total, SITA will deliver a completely new and improved passenger experience at Tanzania’s airports,” Akil concluded.