Baggage Chaos at Gatwick

[Eric Mc]

I haven't seen a thread on this yet so apologies if a repost.

It seems that the contractor who run this service at Gatwick, Swissport, completely misjudged the number of staff they needed during the holiday period.

This is rather strange because this company has been carrying out this particular service for at least 20 years. Did they suddenly forget how to run their business?

What went wrong and why?

[Jimbeaux]

Eric Mc said:

I haven't seen a thread on this yet so apologies if a repost.

It seems that the contractor who run this service at Gatwick, Swissport, completely misjudged the number of staff they needed during the holiday period.

This is rather strange because this company has been carrying out this particular service for at least 20 years. Did they suddenly forget how to run their business?

What went wrong and why?

Maybe the crew member that spoke English called in sick.

Easy.....Eaassy.

[HoHoHo]

Employer introduces 0 hours contracts and expect workers to work weekend shifts.

Workers say fk you and won't work.

Bags are apparently due within 55 minutes of plane arrival (that's as per contract)

Now I don't know enough about 0 hours contracts to comment either way other than you work and get paid and there are a lot of people out of a job. What the fk are the workers doing jeopardising the future of their employer?

It smacks a bit of 'we'll go on strike and show the bds.........oh, hang on we've got no job now.......'

[HRL]

Well they'd best sort it out over the next couple of weeks before I travel through Gatwick myself.

[Eric Mc]

HoHoHo said:

Employer introduces 0 hours contracts and expect workers to work weekend shifts.

Workers say fk you and won't work.

Bags are apparently due within 55 minutes of plane arrival (that's as per contract)

Now I don't know enough about 0 hours contracts to comment either way other than you work and get paid and there are a lot of people out of a job. What the fk are the workers doing jeopardising the future of their employer?

It smacks a bit of 'we'll go on strike and show the bds.........oh, hang on we've got no job now.......'

Who's decision was it to go to Zero Hours Contracts - if that is indeed the reason?

Were Swissport struggling to survive on the wages structures they had been using?
As I said, they have been running the baggage handling at Gatwick for many years. It looks like something was changed and now the business can't really function - for whatever reason.

[HoHoHo]

HRL said:

Well they'd best sort it out over the next couple of weeks before I travel through Gatwick myself.

Well they best sort it out before Sunday, I fly home Monday!

[TLandCruiser]

HoHoHo said:

Employer introduces 0 hours contracts and expect workers to work weekend shifts.

Workers say fk you and won't work.

Bags are apparently due within 55 minutes of plane arrival (that's as per contract)

Now I don't know enough about 0 hours contracts to comment either way other than you work and get paid and there are a lot of people out of a job. What the fk are the workers doing jeopardising the future of their employer?

It smacks a bit of 'we'll go on strike and show the bds.........oh, hang on we've got no job now.......'

If that's true, good! zero hour contracts are the biggest pile of st open to abuse by employers.

Edited by TLandCruiser on Thursday 31st July 18:28

[TLandCruiser]

HoHoHo said:

Employer introduces 0 hours contracts and expect workers to work weekend shifts.

Workers say fk you and won't work.

Bags are apparently due within 55 minutes of plane arrival (that's as per contract)

Now I don't know enough about 0 hours contracts to comment either way other than you work and get paid and there are a lot of people out of a job. What the fk are the workers doing jeopardising the future of their employer?

It smacks a bit of 'we'll go on strike and show the bds.........oh, hang on we've got no job now.......'

If that's true, good! zero hour contracts are the biggest pile of st open to abuse by employers.

Edited by TLandCruiser on Thursday 31st July 18:29

[longblackcoat]

HoHoHo said:

Employer introduces 0 hours contracts and expect workers to work weekend shifts.

Workers say fk you and won't work.

Bags are apparently due within 55 minutes of plane arrival (that's as per contract)

Now I don't know enough about 0 hours contracts to comment either way other than you work and get paid and there are a lot of people out of a job. What the fk are the workers doing jeopardising the future of their employer?

It smacks a bit of 'we'll go on strike and show the bds.........oh, hang on we've got no job now.......'

Works both ways

Employer : We're introducing zero hours contracts

Employees: OK, we'll work zero hours. See ya.

Given that the Gatwick area is pretty much Full Employment Central, there's a lot of opportunities elsewhere. Why support an employer which is setting out to shaft you?

[HoHoHo]

Wooooowwwww boys

I'm not on either side I'm just reporting from the press!

I think they've employed more people on 0 hours and that's caused the issue rather than changed contracts.

[Eric Mc]

And the question is - why?

[MitchT]

Eric Mc said:

This is rather strange because this company has been carrying out this particular service for at least 20 years. Did they suddenly forget how to run their business?

What went wrong and why?

The reason I've heard was that a bunch of planes that were late and a bunch of planes that were early all arrived within a very short space of time, causing the workload to spike beyond manageable levels. Obviously it was then easier for the airport to sack Swissport than acknowledge the actual cause of the problem, as is so often the case in business these days. Of course, I could be completely wrong - I'm just quoting what I heard - and maybe Swissport should have had a contingency plan for such circumstances anyway. It does sound like a one-off though and one wonders whether another company would have handled it better. I think companies just have the be seen to be doing something and sacking a contractor is the path of least resistance to that effect.

[andy_s]

^ It's got feck all to do with 0 contract hours.

[Eric Mc]

I was wondering that too.

However, it does seem that Swissport did not have any sort of emergency backup plan they could call into play.

Even though it may be rare that these types of sudden surge of flights needing to be dealt with happen, I am sure it musty have happened on more than one occasion in the long time period Swissport have been running this operation.

[jpringle819]

The baggage has always been very slow to come out at Gatwick. I fly Gatwick to Toronto very regularly and find it takes 3-4 times as long to receive the bags at Gatwick. In Toronto we are through immigration in about 20 minutes and our bags are already there, at Gatwick it can take up to an hour to clear immigration and then a further 20-30 minute wait for the bags. I always add 2 hours onto the parking times at Gatwick as I have never got back to the car in less than 2 hours after landing.

[HoHoHo]

andy_s said:

^ It's got feck all to do with 0 contract hours.

Not according to the Daily Mail

[Puggit]

Apparently Monarch have already cancelled their contract with Swissport - although there's rumours that was going to happen before this cock up!

[HenryJM]

HoHoHo said:

Not according to the Daily Mail

That bastion of accurate, honest reporting.

[anonymous-user]

MitchT said:

The reason I've heard was that a bunch of planes that were late and a bunch of planes that were early all arrived within a very short space of time, causing the workload to spike beyond manageable levels. Obviously it was then easier for the airport airlines to sack Swissport than acknowledge the actual cause of the problem, as is so often the case in business these days. Of course, I could be completely wrong - I'm just quoting what I heard - and maybe Swissport should have had a contingency plan for such circumstances anyway. It does sound like a one-off though and one wonders whether another company would have handled it better. I think companies just have the be seen to be doing something and sacking a contractor is the path of least resistance to that effect.

It's a good job the Air traff bods aren't subbied out then
"If you could just hold for 3 hrs due to a staff shortage"

[smack]

jpringle819 said:

Stuff

Totally agree. In the last year I think I have used LHR T5 about 12 times, never had any issues, and my luggage has arrived quickly. But I used Gatwick to go to Vegas as the flights times worked for me better than the service out of LHR, and both departing and arriving from the airport was sub standard compared to the service at T5 (ie. BA at both airports). Check in which usually takes me minutes, even 15 minutes on the busiest Christmas period day at T5, at Gatwick took over 30 min on a Sunday, using the Business class check in, the normal line looked like it was taking twice as long (fine that is BA, not Swissport). And arriving back on a weekday morning I still had to wait a good 20 min after I had passed immigration.

In the years I have used Gatwick, I don't ever recall it being good baggage wise.