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Lessons Learned from Project Failure at Denver International Airport: Why Checking Bags is Still a Pain

October 30, 2021 - 7 min read

Ashley Coolman

We regularly review major projects to  extract valuable lessons and pass on the knowledge so that everyone can benefit. One failed project we recently took an interest in is Denver International Airport's luggage handling system.

I was compelled to study this project because checking bags at the airport is still one of my biggest fears. My eye twitches just thinking about it. You can never predict how long check-in lines will be, suitcases are lost daily, and human baggage handlers have a tendency to manhandle their wards. We have probably all wondered why airports haven't come up with a better system by now.

The Failed Project of Denver International Airport

It's not that airports haven't tried to fix the baggage system. When construction started on the new Denver International Airport, it was supposed to come with a brand-new automated system for handling luggage travel and transfers. The goal was to replace the standard reliance on manual labor with a fully-automated baggage system that would also integrate all three terminals. It would reduce aircraft turn-around time for faster service to travelers.

But the project went 16 months past its hard deadline, cost the city $560 million over budget, and performed just a fraction of its original automation goals. Instead of integrating the three concourses and all airlines, it was only used at one concourse, for one airline, for outbound flights only. The project team had to resort to building a second, manual labor system for all other baggage operations. And after valiantly attempting to use the system for 10 years, the only airline that actually adopted the system finally bowed out due to high maintenance costs.

The project ended in spectacular failure — and from their mistakes,  we stand to learn a lot about project communication, scope creep , and poor project definition .

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3 Lessons We Should Learn from Denver

1. Listen when people say, "This isn't going to work."

Warning #1: After airport construction started, the City of Denver hired Breier Neidle Patrone Associates to evaluate if the proposed baggage system project was feasible. The company flat-out stated that  the plan was too complex . The city decided to pursue the possibility anyway.

Warning #2: A similar, simpler project in Munich took a full two years to be completed, followed by six months of 24/7 testing prior to the actual launch. The larger, much more complex Denver International Airport system was due to open in a little over two years. Which means that Denver International Airport was trying to  cram a very complicated project into a very short timeline . The Munich airport advised that it was a project set up to fail. Despite the worrying outlook, the City of Denver decided to proceed without altering their schedule.

Warning #3: When the airport began accepting bids on the new luggage system project, only three companies submitted proposals. Of those proposals, none of them predicted they'd be able to finish the project within the allotted timeframe. The city rejected all three bids, and instead approached a fourth company, BAE Systems, to convince them to take on the superhuman project; again,  without changing the proposed timeline .

Warning #4: Senior managers at BAE Systems expressed initial misgivings about the project's complexity. They estimated a 4-year timeline instead of 2 years, but the  concern was ignored and the project went on with its 2-year deadline still in place.

Four ignored warnings later, nothing had changed. If the City of Denver or the project team had heeded any of these caution flares regarding project complexity and tight deadlines, they would have changed their timeline or scaled back their goals. Instead they barreled ahead, and as a result their project went far past deadline, cost millions of extra dollars, with the final product a disappointing shadow of its original design.

 If the project failure of Denver International Airport teaches you only one thing, it's this:  pay attention to the flashing red lights . Listening to project advice keeps us from dedicating ourselves to impossible projects.

2. Don't wait to involve all parties affected by the project

While BAE Systems and the airport's larger project management team were the steamrollers on the project, they were ultimately not the parties affected by the outcome. Airlines renting space in the airport would be most impacted by the outcome of the automated baggage system. Yet they were not brought into the planning discussions. These  key stakeholders were excluded from the initial decision-making — an open invitation for failure.

Once the airlines were finally asked for their opinions,  they required major changes from the project team: adding ski equipment racks, different handling for oversized luggage, and separate maintenance tracks for broken carts. The requests required major redesign on portions of the project — some of which had already been "completed." But these requests were not optional features for the airlines, and the project team was forced to redo their work.

By waiting to approach stakeholders, the project team  wasted time and money . Had they approached the airlines right away, they would have been able to incorporate these requests into early project plans. They would have shaved off months of extra labor if they didn't have to redo completed work; not overshooting their deadline by 16 months would have saved them a good chunk of the extra $560 million spent. 

It is essential that we include stakeholders from Day 1 to avoid wasting time and money. Don't make the same mistake of waiting until halfway through a project to collect vital requirements.

3. Beware of "Big Bang" projects meant to change the world

Another project complication was the decision to go with an  all-at-once "Big Bang" rollout to all three concourses, as opposed to slower, incremental rollout. In an  article dissecting the problems with Denver International Airport's baggage system project plan , Webster & Associates LLC, an IT consulting company, said that this was one of the biggest project flaws. BAE Systems  should have tested the new automated system in sections to make sure it would work before implementing it throughout the rest of the airport.

This project was the first attempt at an automated system of this size and complexity, and was meant to change the way that airports handled baggage. They wanted instant, large-scale success. Instead, the final product fell short of everyone's expectations.

The best way to get big results is to first ensure you can  create a successful minimal viable product . Once your MVP works well, repeat the process on a larger playing ground, slowly scaling efforts until you reach the end goal.

Project Failure is Not Fatal

Although the automated baggage system failed, today the Denver International Airport is fully functional. I've even taken my skis through their airport without issue. And as long as we learn valuable lessons from their mistakes, we shouldn't consider this project a complete failure — just a painful boo-boo.

Next time you're working on a project, remember these three lessons and avoid facing the same fate as Denver International Airport:

1. Watch for red flags, and heed the warnings of experts. 2. Involve all project stakeholders from Day 1. 3. Take small steps to successfully reach the end goal.

 Good luck on your next projects and next flights!

Related Articles:

•  10 Reasons Projects Fail: Lessons from the Death Star •  3 Kinds of Data to Help Avoid Project Management Failure

Sources: http://calleam.com/WTPF/?page_id=2086 , http://calleam.com/WTPF/content/uploads/articles/DIABaggage.pdf,  http://www.computerworld.com/article/2556725/it-project-management/united-axes-troubled-baggage-system-at-denver-airport.html ,  http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat1/154219.pdf ,  http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/research/SFC/Reports/TR2002-01.pdf

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Ashley Coolman

Ashley is a former Content Marketing Manager of Wrike. She specializes in social media, dry humor, and Oxford commas.

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Report details what went wrong at Denver Airport’s Great Hall project

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Dive Brief:

  • Years after the public disputes that led to the termination of the original contracts on Denver International Airport’s Great Hall Project, the airport has released a report detailing what it says went wrong with the project.
  • The outside report produced for the airport, obtained by the Denver Post , details a retrospective on issues stemming from the original public-private partnership and related struggles from building the expansion in the operational terminal, financing and more.
  • One legislator involved with the project said that the report was “gently written,” according to the Denver Post . Denver City Councilman Paul Kashman called the 2017 vote he cast authorizing the expansion the worst vote he’d ever made on the city council.

Dive Insight:

In January, the project won approval from the city council to enter the third and final phase of the project, with new project manager Hensel Phelps overseeing its progress. The final phase of the project, which focuses on improved security checkpoints, updated ticketing areas and more, will cost $1.3 billion, with the total project cost surpassing $2 billion. The revised 2028 completion date falls seven years after its initially scheduled end phase.

Spanish firm Ferrovial led Great Hall Partners, the initial builder on the project, and the chief partner on the public-private partnership. However, following disputes that included accusations of micromanaging and escalating costs, the airport fired the group , leading to millions of dollars in litigious claims and demands .

The report notes that the project may have been better served as a design-bid-build contract or a construction manager/general contractor project, the latter of which is the current system Hensel Phelps is operating under. 

Hensel Phelps, according to the report, is completing work ahead of schedule and under budget.

The report also noted that the cost overruns, which included millions of dollars in change orders, contributed to the problems. Some of the cost overruns, the report claims, were the result of Great Hall Builders, the original contractors on the job, which included Ferrovial construction subsidiary Ferrovial Agroman West, and Englewood, Colorado-based Saunders Construction. Great Hall Builders, per the report, shipped in materials and equipment that weren’t usable on the project or didn’t have parts available in the U.S. for replacement.

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denver airport project case study

Why Do Projects Fail?

Denver airport baggage system case study.

Read the full case study – Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System case study – or read the abstract below.

Denver International

Originally billed as the most advanced system in the world, the baggage handling system at the new Denver International Airport was to become one of the most notorious examples of project failure.  Originally planned to automate the handling of baggage through the entire airport, the system proved to be far more complex than some had original believed.  The problems building the system resulted in the newly complete airport sitting idle for 16 months while engineers worked on getting the baggage system to work.

Denver Baggage Handling System

The delay added approximately $560M USD to the cost of the airport and became a feature article in Scientific American titled the Software’s Chronic Crisis.  At the end of the day, the system that was finally implemented was a shadow of what was originally planned.  Rather than integrating all three concourses into a single system, the system supported outbound flights on a single concourse only.  All other baggage was handled by a manual tug and trolley system that was hurriedly built when it became clear the automated system would never meet its goals.

Conveyor Belts

Even the portion of the system that was implemented never functioned properly and in Aug 2005 the system was scrapped altogether.  The $1M monthly cost to maintain the system was outweighing the value the remaining parts of the system offered and using a manual system actually cut costs.

Contributing factors as reported in the press : Underestimation of complexity.  Complex architecture.  Changes in requirements.  Underestimation of schedule and budget.  Dismissal of advice from experts.  Failure to build in backup or recovery process to handle situations in which part of the system failed.  The tendency of the system to enjoy eating people’s baggage.

Full case study : For more information read the following in-depth analysis – Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System case study

Related story : In Apr 2008 British Airways & British Airports Authority encountered serious problems when Heathrow’s Terminal 5 opened.  Again Baggage system glitches were a major contributor to the problem.

Reference links :

  • MSNBC on Denver’s Automated Baggage System

Other case studies :

  • US Census Bureau – Field Data Collection Automation project
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Denver Airport Saw the Future. It Didn't Work.

By Kirk Johnson

  • Aug. 27, 2005

DENVER, Aug. 26 - Ten years ago, the new Denver International Airport marched boldly into the future with a computerized baggage-handling system that immediately became famous for its ability to mangle or misplace a good portion of everything that wandered into its path.

Now the book is closing on the brilliant machine that couldn't sort straight. Sometime over the next few weeks, in an anticlimactic moment marked and mourned by just about nobody, the only airline that ever used any part of the system will pull the plug. An episode bowing equally to John Henry, Rube Goldberg and Hal from "2001" will end.

People will be fully back in charge.

"Automation always looks good on paper," said Veronica Stevenson, a lead baggage handler for United Airlines and president of the union local that represents United's 1,300 or so baggage handlers in Denver. "Sometimes you need real people."

The handoff in baggage handling also illustrates how much has changed in airline economics since Denver's grandiose dream was envisioned in the early 1990's. Airlines that were flush then are struggling and looking for ways to save money now, as United will do by shutting down computerized baggage-moving.

Technology, too, has brought change. Back then, the big-brained mainframe doing it all from command central was the model of high tech. Today the very idea of it sounds like a cold-war-era relic, engineers say. Decentralization and mobile computing technology have taken over just about everything, allowing airlines, warehouse operators and shippers like FedEx to learn with just a few clicks the whereabouts of an item in motion, a feature that was supposed to be a chief strength of the baggage system.

The premise of Denver's plan was as big as the West. The distance from a centralized baggage check-in to the farthest gate -- about a mile -- dictated expansive new thinking, planners said, and technology would make the new airport a marvel. Travelers who arrived for check-in or stepped off a plane would have their bags whisked across the airport with minimal human intervention. The result would be fewer flight delays, less waiting at luggage carousels and big savings in airline labor costs.

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Denver's International Airport: A Case Study in Large Scale Infrastructure Development (A)

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Abstract: This case examines the political negotiations which paved the way for the construction of the first major new airport to be built in the United States in the past 20 years. The A case describes the negotiations which led to a memorandum of understanding between the affected governments; Part B carries the story through two annexation elections which finally succeeded in freeing the airport site for development. Learning Objective: By tracing the course of relations between Denver and its suburban communities as they worked to produce agreements allowing the airport to be built, the case is designed to facilitate discussion of the dynamics of city-suburban negotiations and strategies for forging compromise.

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Teaching Case - Denver's International Airport: A Case Study in Large Scale Infrastructure Development (B)

Denver's International Airport: A Case Study in Large Scale Infrastructure Development (B)

Getting realistic about megaproject planning: The case of the new Denver International Airport

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The Denver International Airport Story or Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About How Not To Run A Project (Pt. 1)

In the annals of project management literature, there are few stories as compelling as that of the Denver International Airport (DIA).  DIA – which was to replace Stapleton International Airport – was scheduled to open in October of 1994 with the construction budget being set at $2B. It eventually opened 16 months late, ultimately costing $4.8B, an almost 250% increase. Maintaining the empty airport and interest charges on construction loans cost the city of Denver $1.1M per day throughout the delay. The main reason pointed to for the delay was scope changes requested by United Airlines. ( Italics and boldface are mine.)

If you want to read the full story, there are many case studies on the Internet. I’ve quoted from a few below. (Tellingly, one of them is subtitled “An illustration of ineffectual decision making.” 1 ) If you’re pressed for time, consider this an executive summary. For the record, DIA is, of course, open. I’ve flown into it a number of times in the past few years and it’s quite nice. So this is not the story of a project that was abandoned. It is the story of a technology project run amok, which became much harder and much more expensive than it ever had to. There are far too many reasons underlying this fiasco to fit in this post. I will focus here on three, summarizing some others below:

Design complexity/Scope changes

The baggage handling capabilities of the system – or lack thereof – are fundamental to understanding the initial massive failure. They represent the vast majority of the scope changes requested by the airlines. In short, everyone involved underestimated the complexity of the system.  But even when it was pointed out that A) the system was too complex and B) no bidder could build it on time, the decision was made to go ahead anyway. (See below, Project Management Expertise.) And even if the complexity issue had been factored in – and solved- it never occurred to anyone to update the original schedule, much less budget. ( Scope Creep ).

I will now here quote project management guru Harold Kerzner on the complexity of this proposed “never-been-done-before” baggage handling system: “The system would contain 100 computers, 56 laser scanners, conveyor belts, and thousands of motors. … It would contain 400 fiberglass carts, each carrying a single suitcase through 22 miles (!) of steel tracks. Operating at 20 MPH, it could deliver 60,000 bags per hour from dozens of gates. ..To illustrate the complexity of the situation, consider 4000 taxicabs in a major city, all without drivers, being controlled by a computer through the streets of a city.” 2 ( Google working on something like this?) For the record, there were some 2100 design changes.

In April 1994, the airport arranged for a demonstration of what is likely the most complex – luggage handling system ever built. (Alas, without informing BAE Systems, who designed it). Result? In a nutshell, bags were crushed, clothes disgorged, and public humiliation was had. Jay Leno, then of the Tonight Show, had a field day with it. (To be continued).

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BAE Automated Systems (A): Denver International Airport Baggage-Handling System

  • Format: Print
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denver airport project case study

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BAE Automated Systems (B): Implementing the Denver International Airport Baggage-Handling System

  • BAE Automated Systems (B): Implementing the Denver International Airport Baggage-Handling System  By: Lynda M. Applegate, H. James Nelson, Ramiro Montealegre and Carin-Isabel Knoop
  • Corpus ID: 107276297

A Case Narrative of the Project Problems with the Denver Airport Baggage Handling System

  • A. Donaldson
  • Published 2002
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Decentralized scheduling of baggage handling using multi-agent technologies, towards the application of swarm intelligence in safety critical systems, approximation of a catenary formed out of a rope according to the heights of its points of hold, modelling of a conveyors system as a tool for testing of a baggage handling process, a structured systemic framework for software development, related papers.

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CASE STUDY ANALYSIS BAE Automated Systems (A): Denver International Airport Baggage-Handling System

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Case Study – Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System –... illustration of ineffectual decision making

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  1. PDF Denver International Airport

    Case Study - Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System - An illustration of ineffectual decision making Calleam Consulting Ltd - Why Technology Projects Fail Synopsis Dysfunctional decision making is the poison that kills technology projects and the Denver Airport Baggage System project in the 1990's is a classic example.

  2. Lessons Learned from Project Failure at Denver International Airport

    3 Lessons We Should Learn from Denver. 1. Listen when people say, "This isn't going to work." Warning #1: After airport construction started, the City of Denver hired Breier Neidle Patrone Associates to evaluate if the proposed baggage system project was feasible. The company flat-out stated that the plan was too complex.The city decided to pursue the possibility anyway.

  3. Report details what went wrong at Denver Airport's Great Hall project

    The outside report produced for the airport, obtained by the Denver Post, details a retrospective on issues stemming from the original public-private partnership and related struggles from ...

  4. Great Hall Project

    The Great Hall Project is one of DEN's capital improvement projects that will help the airport prepare for the future by enhancing security, improving operational efficiency and increasing capacity of the Jeppesen Terminal. The Jeppesen Terminal was originally designed to accommodate 50 million passengers, but in 2023, DEN served nearly 78 ...

  5. Denver Airport Project Failure: A Case Study.

    Published Apr 1, 2023. + Follow. Denver International Airport project was an ambitious undertaking to build a new airport to replace Denver's existing Stapleton Airport. The project was ...

  6. Denver Airport Baggage System Case Study

    Full case study : For more information read the following in-depth analysis - Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System case study. Related story : In Apr 2008 British Airways & British Airports Authority encountered serious problems when Heathrow's Terminal 5 opened. Again Baggage system glitches were a major contributor to the ...

  7. Lessons Learned: The Denver International Airport Automated Baggage

    The Denver International Airport (DIA) is renowned for its iconic tent-like structure, but it is also infamous in engineering and project management circles for its ambitious, yet flawed, automated baggage-handling system. ... This system, which was intended to revolutionize the airport industry, instead became a case study in the pitfalls of ...

  8. Case Study

    Synopsis Dysfunctional decision making is the poison that kills technology projects and the Denver Airport Baggage System project in the 1990's is a classic example. Although several case studies have been written about the Denver project, the following paper reexamines the case by looking at the key decisions that set the project on the path to disaster and the forces behind those decisions.

  9. Denver Airport Saw the Future. It Didn't Work

    Aug. 27, 2005. DENVER, Aug. 26 - Ten years ago, the new Denver International Airport marched boldly into the future with a computerized baggage-handling system that immediately became famous for ...

  10. Denver's International Airport: A Case Study in Large Scale

    This case examines the political negotiations which paved the way for the construction of the first major new airport to be built in the United States in the past 20 years. The A case describes the negotiations which led to a memorandum of understanding between the affected governments; Part B carries the story through two annexation elections ...

  11. Getting realistic about megaproject planning: The case of the new

    Denver International Airport was another well-documented case; the original budget of $1.8 billion almost tripled, reaching $4.8 billion at completion. The cost of maintenance of the constructed ...

  12. The Denver International Airport case study

    1) In the annals of project management literature, there are few stories as compelling as that of the Denver International Airport (DIA). DIA - which was to replace Stapleton International Airport - was scheduled to open in October of 1994 with the construction budget being set at $2B. It eventually opened 16 months late, ultimately costing ...

  13. What happened to DIA's failed automated baggage system ...

    DENVER — Back in the early 1990s, the opening of the new Denver International Airport was actually delayed 16 months by what was supposed to be an innovative, automated baggage system that ...

  14. BAE Automated Systems (A): Denver International Airport Baggage

    Describes the events surrounding the construction of the BAE baggage-handling system at the Denver International Airport. It looks specifically at project management, including decisions regarding budget, scheduling, and the overall management structure. ... Harvard Business School Case 396-311, April 1996. (Revised November 1996.) Educators;

  15. A Case Narrative of the Project Problems with the Denver Airport

    Semantic Scholar extracted view of "A Case Narrative of the Project Problems with the Denver Airport Baggage Handling System" by A. Donaldson ... area of research methodologies by resurrecting William Whewell's Discoverers' Induction and furthering the use of the case study method in the engineering management and systems engineering domain ...

  16. The baggage system at Denver: prospects and lessons

    The total length of the baggage transportation lines in a medium-size airport is typically up to tens of kilometers, making it one of the largest and most complex single systems in the terminal (De Neufville, 1994). The steadiness, reliability and efficiency of the BHS are crucial to the operation of the terminal. Show abstract.

  17. Denver Airport Baggage Handling System

    The $238 million system consisted of over 100 computers networked together, 5,000 electric eyes, 400 radio receivers, and 56 bar-code scanners. The purpose of the system was to ensure the safe and timely arrival of every piece of baggage. Significant management, mechanical, and software problems plagued the automated baggage handling system.

  18. Denver International Airport Automated Baggage Handling System-project

    Denver airport project management should have engaged key stakeholders throughout the project like was the case with the management of Heathrow Terminal 5 project and Page 8 of 13 the London Olympic 2012 where stakeholder engagement was one of the critical success factors (Elson, 2013; Kintra, 2013; Caldwell et al, 2009). 2.2.4 Risk Management ...

  19. (PDF) Denver Airport Baggage Handling System Case Study

    Synopsis Dysfunctional decision making is the poison that kills technology projects and the Denver Airport Baggage System project in the 1990's is a classic example. Although several case studies have been written about the Denver project, the ... Calleam Consulting Case Study - Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System - An ...

  20. (PDF) CASE STUDY ANALYSIS BAE Automated Systems (A): Denver

    Project feasibility Assessment The second recommendation is in Denver Airport Baggage Handling System, any change in the project should under the feasibility assessment. In this project, the acceptance of any requirement without feasibility and risk assessment contribute to the scope creep even make the project overdue and over budget.

  21. Denver International Airport explores options to solve traffic ...

    Even though the airport makes loads of money, whatever happens with Peña Boulevard, the airport cannot pay for the entire project with airport funds. A traffic study by DIA in 2016/2017 ...

  22. Group 5 Denver International Airport Case Study.docx

    Denver International Airport 3 2. Project completion exceeded the plan 3. Early risk identified with correct action to mitigate 4. Operational baggage system (BAE) negotiated unrealistic project plans 5. Lack of buy-in from major Airlines and United 6. Continuous scope creep, i.e. roof, north and south runways, railroad, hotel, etc. 7. Failure to have a contingency plan for contractors during ...

  23. Case Study

    Denver Airport Baggage Handling System Case Study - Calleam Consulting Case Study - Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System - An illustration of ineffectual decision making Calleam Consulting Ltd - Why Technology Projects Fail Synopsis Dysfunctional decision making is the poison that kills technology projects and the Denver Airport Baggage System project in the 1990's is ...