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Speaker 1: Just in time for the holidays. Air New Zealand has

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Speaker 1: found a way to make finding lost luggage a little

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Speaker 1: bit easier, So they've come out today and said that

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Speaker 1: travelers who put an Apple ear tag on their bag

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Speaker 1: can share its location with the airline's customer service team,

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Speaker 1: so if the bag becomes lost, they'll be able to

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Speaker 1: view both where it was last scanned at the airport

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Speaker 1: by the airlines, but also its current location. Nicol Rabashanka

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Speaker 1: is In New Zealand's chief Digital officer. He's with me

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Speaker 1: this evening. Nicol, Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Hi, Ryan, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: How many bags do you guys lose a day?

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Speaker 2: I can tell you in twenty twenty four we mishandled

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Speaker 2: about six point six percent of bags we transported. We

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Speaker 2: transport about three point two million bags a year, and

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Speaker 2: twenty thousand of those were mishandled in twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: All right, so quite a lot. How until now, how

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Speaker 1: have you not been able to use people's ear tags?

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Speaker 1: I mean it must be frustrating for them if they've

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Speaker 1: got an ear tag on their bag and they can

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Speaker 1: show it to the customer service rip, and up until

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Speaker 1: now they've been able to do what nothing with that information?

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Speaker 2: Well, if you recall a couple of years ago, we

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Speaker 2: had that Northern Hemisphere snowstorm and we had the Bag

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Speaker 2: of Mageddon here in New Zealand. What we did do

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Speaker 2: for folk who had air tags in their suitcases was

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Speaker 2: we just borrow their phone and go looking for their bag.

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Speaker 2: Now we don't obviously have to do that. We have

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Speaker 2: a much more elegant solution, and that's thanks to sort

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Speaker 2: of the collaboration with Apple and the work they've done

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Speaker 2: to allow safe sharing of air tag locations with trusted

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Speaker 2: third parties like ourselves.

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Speaker 1: Is that what the hold up's has been security?

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's sharing an air tag location when it's

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Speaker 2: attached to you know, your personal items is a quite

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Speaker 2: a it's quite a sophisticated solution to manage the private

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Speaker 2: associated with that. So, for example, when a customer shares

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Speaker 2: their air tag location with us, we get to keep

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Speaker 2: that only for a temporary timeframe, so about seven days

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Speaker 2: or until the bag gets reunited with the customer. So

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Speaker 2: building that type of infrastructure was going to be critical

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Speaker 2: to do this safely.

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Speaker 1: Do you recommend people get an ear tag then, because like,

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Speaker 1: how many of your customers, do you reckon actually have them? Now?

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Speaker 1: Do you get lots of requests for them? For you know,

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Speaker 1: finding lost bags using your tags.

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Speaker 2: It's getting more and more popular, and as the sort

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Speaker 2: of cost of an air tag drops, and the fact

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Speaker 2: that now the various civil aviation authorities around the world

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Speaker 2: are sort of okaying the use of Apple air tags,

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Speaker 2: we see becoming very popular. So this is a added

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Speaker 2: peace of mind, if you will, or for custom some

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Speaker 2: as who are for travelers who want to invest in it,

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Speaker 2: and we're making sure that you know, we're positioned to

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Speaker 2: allow them to utilize it the way we've got it

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Speaker 2: set up now.

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Speaker 1: Interesting, Nicol, thank you very much for your time in

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Speaker 1: running us through that. Nicol Ravashenka, who's in New Zealand's

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Speaker 1: chief digital officer. I mean, ideally they wouldn't lose your

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Speaker 1: bag in the first place, your beg wouldn't get lost

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Speaker 1: in the first place. But I guess if it does

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Speaker 1: then having an ear tag. To be honest, I've never

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Speaker 1: used an ear tag in my entire life. I don't

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Speaker 1: even know what couldn't even tell you what they look like,

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Speaker 1: but I know that people who are terrible with car

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Speaker 1: keys and wallets find them invaluable. For more from Hither

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Speaker 1: Duplessy Allan Drive, Listen live to news talks it'd be

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