ATLANTA — Before the plane even arrives, Mike Davis is on his way to the gate at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
"So we have two bags to pick up, with one stop," Davis explained from behind the wheel of a baggage tug that ferries luggage to and from planes.
Davis works for Delta Air Lines on the ramp, as airlines call the bustling area of pavement between the terminal and the taxiway. He's waiting when the jet pulls up, and bags start rolling down the conveyor belt. Davis grabs two suitcases off the belt, pulls out a handheld computer that looks like an extra-rugged iPad, and scans the bar codes on the luggage tags.
"Now I take it, I scan it, it gives me a green scan sign saying it's A-okay," Davis said.
Then he's off again, navigating around dozens of other tugs, trucks and planes, constantly on the move from terminal to terminal and gate to gate.
Memorial Day kicks off the busiest time of year for U.S. airlines, with millions of passengers in the air — and millions of bags too. On a busy day, Delta handles more than 100,000 bags in Atlanta alone, with three-quarters passing through en route to their final destinations. An average of nine airline employees handle each of those bags at some point on its journey.
Loading...
NPR got a rare look behind the scenes at how all of that luggage moves through the world's busiest airport by passenger volume.
"Atlanta is an enormous operation, Delta's biggest by a long way," said Paul Buckley, Delta's director of operations here. To manage all of this complexity, the airline built its own AI system to help its tug drivers move bags more efficiently, like a ridesharing algorithm.
"In our old dispatching system, we gave the drivers the bags that they were to handle. And then they, in many cases, would choose the order. And some were better than others. Now we have consistency, because we know exactly what order we're delivering them in," Buckley said.
The AI system helps drivers prioritize which bags need to go first.
"I don't have to focus on crunching numbers and trying to figure out my own route. It does all that for me," said Mike Davis. "It tells me which gate. All I got to do is just to get there."
But the AI system is not perfect, Davis said. Sometimes it's given him some very tight connections.
"There's been times where I knew that I wasn't going to make a connecting flight. However, I still took the chance and went to that gate and the plane was still there. So lucky for me, lucky for the customer," Davis said. "That's something beyond my control. But what I can control is, if I've got 20 minutes, I'm gonna make it."
Quick connections like that are called "hot bags." There are also "cold bags," with a layover of more than two hours. They wind up in a sprawling bag-sorting system underneath the airport's passenger concourses, where they're fed into a massive labyrinth of conveyor belts and metal ramps.
Delta says the new AI system has improved its baggage transfer success rates by as much as 20%. The airline says it plans to expand the system to its other hubs in Detroit and Minneapolis-Saint Paul later this year.
Still, Delta says AI will not displace its human ramp employees.
"We don't see AI as something that is going to replace our people," Buckley said. "We see AI as an enabler, an enabler of performance, and giving the tools to our people to go produce at an even better level."
The system has been especially helpful for newer drivers, Delta managers said. And it's making the job easier for veterans like Mike Davis, who's won awards for being one of Delta's best tug drivers.
"I had to be a critical thinker. This takes all the thought out of it," he said.
When asked if he ever misses the problem-solving part of the job, Davis didn't hesitate.
"You know how they say, 'out with the old and in with the new?' That's what it is. It's called continuous improvement," he said. "You have to change with the times to be relevant."
Copyright 2026 NPR
Loading...
