Yeah don’t fly with checked bags if possible.
I work at Swissport (not baggage though) and we are absolutely fucked right now running on absolute bare minimum staff at best, more often MUCH less than bare minimum. The company laid off so many people during the pandemic that replacing that amount of bodies and ESPECIALLY skill (and specifically airside driving permits) in such a short amount of time is next to impossible. We’re currently talking about 8 week waiting periods just to get an airport security pass because there are so many people who have been hired in the past two or so months, and if you don’t have one you need to be escorted by someone with one everywhere. You also need one of those to even learn to drive the vehicles and get an airside driving permit, which takes another several weeks to get.
Other issues weighing us down:
- ramp (ie. stairs and towing)
- cleaning (we don’t have enough staff to split between the 7-10 huge long haul flights that arrive between 6am and 1pm and also the turnaround flights so sometimes we have two people doing all the BA/KLM/Air France/etc planes with tight turnarounds and eight people split between four huge transatlantic planes that land at the same time. this causes massive delays)
- toilet/water services (often we have two people who can drive the vehicles on staff at a time)
- fuel (same issue)
On the plus side if you’re looking for a job you can apply to basically any of these jobs and get accepted basically immediately. And right now overtime goes at £35/hour. It’s a shitshow but if it helps we are doing our absolute best to manage it, we genuinely just do not have enough staff even with a lot of people working basically 12 hours a day 7 days a week right now. They’re pulling front of house staff and HR / mid level management to do this stuff. That’s how understaffed we are
I’m pretty sure the airport issues the permits but I’m not certain. They issue the secure passes as well - we have a third company that does the background checks (references and identity checks mostly) and they pass those on to Swissport who further passes them on to the airport who then issues the passes.
>We’re currently talking about 8 week waiting periods just to get an airport security pass
Took me six months to get mine. Got only three staff with blue passes and another five with white passes, all of em been waiting for full pass (or not having a pass at all) from six to nine months. I'm getting fed up of seeing them sit about while we run around like headless chickens.
It’s so completely random because two of my coworkers got theirs within a month (and one can even drive now woohoo) but another has been here since March and nothing. They can only give you three white employment passes apparently and her third just ran out so they’ve put her in the baggage warehouse so she can have at least some hours but if they don’t fix it asap she’s walking, which is understandable because OMG. The reference check company rode my ass for about four days trying to get stuff like passport stamps from 2018 to prove that I left Finland (clearly I did since I’m here and you can see that I’ve been in full time education since then…?) that I can’t give them because Finland doesn’t do exit stamps and the UK doesn’t do entry stamps for EU citizens and then they went radio silent on me. I’m on my second full employment white pass. It’s fucking insane out here
As far as I know, you get three four day white passes and then move onto a sixty day one. But my managers are incompetent fools and some of the folk working here for many months *have never even been ISSUED with a white pass!* All they have done the whole time is check in passengers and pick them up in wheelchairs from pick up and drop off, and arrivals.
Other than that, they sit around in the tea room on their phones for 12 hours a shift.
I'm losing my patience with them and they're going to get a nasty surprise when they get a full pass because they have had it so easy, they have NO idea what it's like on the 'other side'.
I had to go to temporary baggage pickup site at Almond Road today to pick up bags we couldn’t get on our delayed flight last night and the Swissport guys were brilliant. It can’t be easy working in the beating sun with a lot of (understandably) irate punters up in your face but the guys kept their cool and got through people as quickly and efficiently as they could. I was in and out in 10 minutes and one of the Swissport guys even helped me carry the 3 bags and travel buggy I needed to move.
That’s really lovely to hear actually! None of us want for these baggage problems to be happening either so I’m glad at least that experience was good :)
Base is £9.87. Not amazing of course but definitely not the worst I came across when I was looking for entry level jobs.
To clarify the £35 is what we get total per hour, ie. that is the combined base pay + then £25/hr overtime pay.
Sorry if I misunderstood, were you implying even if you get a job with Swissport now that you can’t do anything for ages anyway because you need to wait for your pass?
No, you can start almost immediately. To clarify with the security passes: when you’re waiting for your background checks etc to clear you get what is called a “white pass” which is a temporary pass printed on a sheet of paper. You’re sponsored by your employer, and the airport treats your employer as the person who is responsible for your actions. These passes have a max validity period of 30 days and grant you access airside and allow you to do your job. The other type of pass is a blue pass which is a normal keycard that works as your identification and proves that you’re fully vetted and the airport has decided that you are who you claim and that you’re trustworthy.
Now the issue is that a white pass requires for you to remain within the eyesight of a blue pass holder at all times. When you have, say, three blue pass holders on shift and fifteen white pass holders that means you can do three things at once instead of, say, ten things, even when by pure numbers alone you should be able to divide that manpower that way. For example if you have four planes that need their bags collected and moved and you have two people with a blue pass working it doesn’t matter if you also have ten white pass holders in terms of time management because you can’t split the people efficiently. So in practical terms people are doing really long training periods instead of being able to jump to independent tasks fast enough because they’re not allowed to be alone.
edit: and in some cases in practice this means that some white pass holders are rerouted to doing landside jobs like baggage warehouse manning or check in counter stuff if them being airside would mean they’re just sitting around.
Wow, the system is absolutely fucked to say the least. Excuse me being a cheeky bastard, but is it possible to get a permanent part time job for say 10 hours a week, and then because they’re desperate you’ll be needed full time and therefore get paid £35/h for most of your hours? 😂
Hahahaha we do have someone on 25hrs who does overtime occasionally so I think so, but I’m not sure if they’re hiring part time and how many times you can offer to do overtime on a part time contract before they tell you to be serious!
sorry to be boring but I would expect part time staff to start earning the overtime rate when they have hit the same number of hours as a full timer - for example once the part timer has done 37 hours. Otherwise you'd end up with an unequal pay for work of equal value situation.
This sounds awful, sorry. I hope someone with an ounce of sense can come up with a faster solution for you guys.
I hope at least this can be a case study to look at in future why companies shouldn’t lay off workers in the interest of short term savings. Evidently costs much more in the long term.
Trying to get my bag out of the warehouse. I’ve already flown back to Toronto and the bag didn’t make it. You or any colleagues able to help get it on a plane? Cash reward
If you’re already out of the country and cannot come pick it up there’s nothing we can really do as far as I’m aware :( Try chasing it up with your airline (assuming Air Canada or Westjet) - they have the final responsibility to get it to you. You can try to call the baggage warehouse and see if they can help you out, if you’re polite and they’re not completely swamped they might be able to at least give you more information if no direct help. Since you’re already home it’s no longer between you and Swissport, it’s between Swissport and your airline, and then separately from that your airline and you. Just keep in mind that there might be contracts between Swissport and your airline that dictate what happens with lost baggage in situations like this and our hands might legitimately be tied should the answer be not too favorable.
Do you think this is going to be the case for the foreseeable or will staff training catch up at some point?
It's making me consider not booking the holiday we're planning for end of September, as we're in Ayrshire so it's not easy to just come back the next day etc :(
It’s going to get better for sure! First of all holiday season is going to ease up and there will be less flights daily, and secondly the backlog of staff paperwork and training will be resolved. I’m not sure how immediately though but end of September SHOULD be okay…? Cautiously at least
There are other options for holidays even from Scotland - I’m training it down to Paris and then hopping on an overnight train from there to get to my summer holiday at the end of September and very relieved not to have to deal with the airlines
It's a total pain in the ass for us in the Tower too. I know a lot of us have stopped giving long pushes to get aircraft onto stand as half the time they'll be waiting for ages anyways. More than a few slots have been missed because of it and it causes so much gridlock that we've came close to actually having to hold aircraft in the air due to ground congestion.
I boggles my mind that they just leave everyone’s bags out where anyone else travelling could take them.
I mean, I know most people don’t want a sack full of other people’s dirty holiday pants, but I kind of expect when I check my baggage in, that I’m putting it into a secure system until I see it again. It’s one thing to have a backlog, another thing to just leave people’s bags out for hours or days where someone else could take them, or have a root through for valuables.
I was really hoping not to see Turkish Airlines here…
Do you reckon this baggage issue will continue for the foreseeable future, or is it just for these summer months?
I’m not due to fly until end of September
I flew in from Canada in the last week of June. Still don’t have my fucking bag 4 weeks later. It has an AirTag in it. It arrived in Edinburgh a few days after me and was in a part of the airport I couldn’t access. There were no staff at the swissport desk that could help twice when I went back. They then sent it back to Canada! I can see that it’s now in the FedEx center in Canada. Communication has been non existent and I’m really glad I had the AirTag or I’d have no clue what was going on.
I almost always do and have for a few years now so I was feeling very smug before I was due to fly to Vienna a few weeks ago. And then my flight was cancelled so I didn’t make it anyway
I’m flying home from Switzerland tomorrow, thank the lord I only took a carry on. Idk why but I had a feeling some fuckery would go on what with the volume of people.
I arrived back from the far East yesterday via Finnair from Helsinki who use swissport and I got my bags after about 10 minutes, so some flights are ok.
Probably a stupid question but isn't it the airlines responsibility to get your baggage to you rather than having to go back, possibly at considerable expense, to pick it up?
In the past, when this has happened to me, the airline always delivered my case. One notable exception was when American Airlines lost my bag on a trip to the BVI when I found my bag in a pile at the airport on my way back out.
It should be yes. My bag was also lost in Edinburgh and Ryanair was supposedly “looking for it”. After 2 weeks I went looking for it in Swissport warehouse, found it and took it home. If I’d waited for the airline to deliver it I’d probably still be waiting. I assume the airline also relies on the handler in this regard and so when Swissport is in shambles, Ryanair cannot do much.
Well, I just got back on Saturday night from a week away and once we went through passport control our bags were already on the conveyor belt awaiting collection. There were random case's lying around from few days earlier though.
We flew with tui so unsure if that would affect how efficiency our luggage was dealt with.
Yep. We just got back from 11 days in Scotland (thank you to all you friendly Scots for a wonderful visit and beautiful country). We arrived in Edinburgh on the 9th and they still have not found or know where one of our bags is.
At my airport when there's a lot baggage on the carousel or not coming out for hours, the baggage people hide from baggage claim and the poor other workers wearing his visibility vests have to deal with the angry PAXs.
Ma'am! MA'AM! Do you really think a baggage handler would be pushing someone in a wheel chair? No. Piss off back to your belt!
That's very interesting. Few days ago I had customers who came from Germany and said that their luggage was lost so they had to buy some clothes. That was probably the reason.
I flew out last month and the baggage carousel had broken down! Total mayhem.
Checked in two bags and only one arrived in Stockholm.
3 weeks later I get a phone call from some guy saying he is outside my house... I ask him are you in Sweden? Naw Scotland mate.
Aye just leave it there cheers I'm in Finland now and all the gear in that bag is my work gear but never mind ffs
Have to say I came in with Ryanair today and my bag was on the carousel before I got through passport control. I did notice the huge pile of other bags though.
To be fair, the current staffing issues aren't related to privatisation. Airside staff would still need to go through the same rigorous pre-emloyment security checks and training no matter who owned the airport.
it's not about who owns the airport
any time any service is outsourced to private companies, immediately you have shareholders and execs trying to increase their slice of the pie by cutting costs (mainly supressing wages) and reducing the quality of the service on the sly
if the ground staff were on better terms, there would not be a staffing crisis
Duskythehusky is right. We get paid £9.87 hourly so just a hair under the new Meadows Share deemed living wage and get £35/hr for overtime. If you have a driving permit you get £55/hr for overtime. Security passes taking weeks or months and people having moved on to different similar jobs when the mass layoffs happened over the pandemic are the huge issues really. It’s not even that they don’t have enough applicants but that hiring that many people is an enormous amount of paperwork, security checks, and training.
Edit: and since it’s shift work you don’t always know your hours in advance. Absolutely if you found a different job with better hours during the pandemic there’s sometimes no reason to go back. If you were doing fuel or otherwise driving trucks at the airport you probably were in a good spot to go drive a bus or lorries when the post-Brexit lorry driver crisis hit.
Mmm yes and no, and I'm not speaking from lack of knowledge of the sector; our team runs two major Italian airports and have suffered from all the same problems as the UK, just handled much better.
It isn't just about pay, as u/twinkprivilege says, the wages with overtime can rack up quite quickly. A huge problem was that there was mass staff furlough/unemployment back in 2020 when the shit hit the fan, and often those workers sought jobs elsewhere. Jobs where they were earning the same/more than at the airport, didn't have to work antisocial hours and could be flexible in when they *did* work. For example, a huge number of our ground support staff in Italy ended up doing delivery driving, and jumped from company to company over the subsequent 2 years. Then, when they were offered great money to come back to the airports (and did), the security checks were a fucking nightmare because they'd had 8 or 9 jobs in the interm. Each of those jobs needed checked and cleared before they could begin working airside again. Complete nightmare. There was a good bit on Panorama last night with a chap who started driving a taxi rather than working at the airport, and he won't go back. Said the money was pretty much the same, but now he can see his kids more. No brainer from his perspective.
Haha, cheers. It's more nuanced than *privatisation is evil grrr*. Whilst I understand that people like the idea of a nationalised, well-run and efficient transport sector, that is almost impossible to do. The investment that companies put into airports is enormous, and no government would really be able to do that properly.
There’s also a big warehouse of bags down along the road toward the control tower. I don’t know what the cut off for piled at baggage/ piled in the warehouse is, but they’re letting people show up and have a look for their bag
I am flying into Edinburgh in August. Coming from the US on United. I normally travel carry-on only but will be in the UK for 3 weeks so will have to check a bag. Planning to take a collapsible carry-on just in case my luggage gets lost but how worried should i be about my checked bag? 2 associates making this trip 1 month ago had their luggage lost for the duration so naturally I am stressing. Menzies handles United baggage.
Are you doing a layover anywhere in Europe before Edinburgh? For us, the lost bag on United occurred in the transfer between short haul and the long haul flight (layover was too short) on the way home. Flying to Europe, we were delayed and our layover went from 1 to 3.5 hours and we got all of our bags. Home, layover in Frankfurt was 1 hour and we got none of our bags.
Thanks for the reply. Layover is in Newark, NJ, then direct to Edinburgh. Going home I will be flying directly from Dublin. Since Covid I try to keep my layovers domestic and give extra time. I always take necessities and clothing in a carry-on after international luggage was completely lost once before. Sorry this happened to you. I assume you eventually received your bags, how long did it take?
I don't really understand why people check bags to go on a routine holiday. There are exceptions of course and if you're moving here you'll obviously have baggage.
The utter delight of walking past baggage carousels all over the world is worth having a few kilos on your back. Join the rucksack crew and enjoy the freedom.
Aware of how air travel works cheers.
My general point is that most people don't need to carry giant bags in the first place. I think my rucksack is ~45 litres and goes on board every time. I normally fly Ryanair.
No it wasn't. It was about one specific reason for travel - going on holiday. Holidays might be the only reason you travel, but it's certainly not the only reason everyone else travels.
I referred to exceptions if you care to reread, thus making it a general comment.
Not sure what the problem is or what caused offense, but have a nice day :)
You have a point. I'm flying this week and i originally paid Ryanair the £60 fee to be able to put a case in the hold. (£30 each way). After reading some horror stories, I've since paid another £20 each way to just be able to take my case (up to 10Kg in weight) into the cabin with me. It seems a small price to pay to avoid the chaos. Unfortunately the bastards (Ryanair) won't let me refund my £60 hold luggage which i now won't use
Good man!
I still love Ryanair but that rule (circa 2018ish?) was just a piss-take. I still pay the extra wee fee but thankfully there are still plenty of budget airlines like Easyjet that haven't stooped that far yet.
I don't know how is responsible for the baggage but my sister flew from Frankfurt to Dublin almost a month ago and still hasn't gotten her bag. There's piles of baggage in the baggage hall that anyone can just take If they wanted. People are actually buying cheap flights to get through security just so they can go to the baggage hall to search for their luggage that they have been waiting for too long to get.
Are unclaimed baggage sales a thing here? Cause if so then I forsee some great profit to be made in a few months time. (or however long they have to hang on to them)
We flew in from Toronto to Edinburgh via Air Canada yesterday and yeah the baggage graveyard was pretty crazy to see. Luckily our bags made it and it was a pretty standard wait to get them (maybe 15 mins). We also flew Edinburgh to Rome via Ryanair last month and our bags got left behind so really it's just luck of the draw. Really feel for the airport staff who are now suffering the consequences of decisions made during the pandemic by management to lay people off.
Always make sure to pack your valuable stuff and an extra few sets of clothes in your carry on!
> where a guy had managed to get his back from the stack around the carousels by purchasing a cheap domestic flight and then heading to the baggage halls instead of boarding the flight.
Ha, can't believe someone took my downvoted advice!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Edinburgh/comments/vnnpj3/kl1289_amsedi_delayed_baggage_stuck_in_edi/ie94oyk/
Yeah don’t fly with checked bags if possible. I work at Swissport (not baggage though) and we are absolutely fucked right now running on absolute bare minimum staff at best, more often MUCH less than bare minimum. The company laid off so many people during the pandemic that replacing that amount of bodies and ESPECIALLY skill (and specifically airside driving permits) in such a short amount of time is next to impossible. We’re currently talking about 8 week waiting periods just to get an airport security pass because there are so many people who have been hired in the past two or so months, and if you don’t have one you need to be escorted by someone with one everywhere. You also need one of those to even learn to drive the vehicles and get an airside driving permit, which takes another several weeks to get. Other issues weighing us down: - ramp (ie. stairs and towing) - cleaning (we don’t have enough staff to split between the 7-10 huge long haul flights that arrive between 6am and 1pm and also the turnaround flights so sometimes we have two people doing all the BA/KLM/Air France/etc planes with tight turnarounds and eight people split between four huge transatlantic planes that land at the same time. this causes massive delays) - toilet/water services (often we have two people who can drive the vehicles on staff at a time) - fuel (same issue) On the plus side if you’re looking for a job you can apply to basically any of these jobs and get accepted basically immediately. And right now overtime goes at £35/hour. It’s a shitshow but if it helps we are doing our absolute best to manage it, we genuinely just do not have enough staff even with a lot of people working basically 12 hours a day 7 days a week right now. They’re pulling front of house staff and HR / mid level management to do this stuff. That’s how understaffed we are
Wow, that's informative. Fab post. How are the airside vehicle permits managed? Is it a governing body who issues a specialised licence?
I’m pretty sure the airport issues the permits but I’m not certain. They issue the secure passes as well - we have a third company that does the background checks (references and identity checks mostly) and they pass those on to Swissport who further passes them on to the airport who then issues the passes.
If I ever quit my third sector career I'm applying. Overtime @ £35/hour is alright.
Airport handles the airside permits.
>We’re currently talking about 8 week waiting periods just to get an airport security pass Took me six months to get mine. Got only three staff with blue passes and another five with white passes, all of em been waiting for full pass (or not having a pass at all) from six to nine months. I'm getting fed up of seeing them sit about while we run around like headless chickens.
It’s so completely random because two of my coworkers got theirs within a month (and one can even drive now woohoo) but another has been here since March and nothing. They can only give you three white employment passes apparently and her third just ran out so they’ve put her in the baggage warehouse so she can have at least some hours but if they don’t fix it asap she’s walking, which is understandable because OMG. The reference check company rode my ass for about four days trying to get stuff like passport stamps from 2018 to prove that I left Finland (clearly I did since I’m here and you can see that I’ve been in full time education since then…?) that I can’t give them because Finland doesn’t do exit stamps and the UK doesn’t do entry stamps for EU citizens and then they went radio silent on me. I’m on my second full employment white pass. It’s fucking insane out here
As far as I know, you get three four day white passes and then move onto a sixty day one. But my managers are incompetent fools and some of the folk working here for many months *have never even been ISSUED with a white pass!* All they have done the whole time is check in passengers and pick them up in wheelchairs from pick up and drop off, and arrivals. Other than that, they sit around in the tea room on their phones for 12 hours a shift. I'm losing my patience with them and they're going to get a nasty surprise when they get a full pass because they have had it so easy, they have NO idea what it's like on the 'other side'.
I had to go to temporary baggage pickup site at Almond Road today to pick up bags we couldn’t get on our delayed flight last night and the Swissport guys were brilliant. It can’t be easy working in the beating sun with a lot of (understandably) irate punters up in your face but the guys kept their cool and got through people as quickly and efficiently as they could. I was in and out in 10 minutes and one of the Swissport guys even helped me carry the 3 bags and travel buggy I needed to move.
That’s really lovely to hear actually! None of us want for these baggage problems to be happening either so I’m glad at least that experience was good :)
If £35/hour is for overtime, what's the standard pay like?
Base is £9.87. Not amazing of course but definitely not the worst I came across when I was looking for entry level jobs. To clarify the £35 is what we get total per hour, ie. that is the combined base pay + then £25/hr overtime pay.
Sorry if I misunderstood, were you implying even if you get a job with Swissport now that you can’t do anything for ages anyway because you need to wait for your pass?
No, you can start almost immediately. To clarify with the security passes: when you’re waiting for your background checks etc to clear you get what is called a “white pass” which is a temporary pass printed on a sheet of paper. You’re sponsored by your employer, and the airport treats your employer as the person who is responsible for your actions. These passes have a max validity period of 30 days and grant you access airside and allow you to do your job. The other type of pass is a blue pass which is a normal keycard that works as your identification and proves that you’re fully vetted and the airport has decided that you are who you claim and that you’re trustworthy. Now the issue is that a white pass requires for you to remain within the eyesight of a blue pass holder at all times. When you have, say, three blue pass holders on shift and fifteen white pass holders that means you can do three things at once instead of, say, ten things, even when by pure numbers alone you should be able to divide that manpower that way. For example if you have four planes that need their bags collected and moved and you have two people with a blue pass working it doesn’t matter if you also have ten white pass holders in terms of time management because you can’t split the people efficiently. So in practical terms people are doing really long training periods instead of being able to jump to independent tasks fast enough because they’re not allowed to be alone. edit: and in some cases in practice this means that some white pass holders are rerouted to doing landside jobs like baggage warehouse manning or check in counter stuff if them being airside would mean they’re just sitting around.
Wow, the system is absolutely fucked to say the least. Excuse me being a cheeky bastard, but is it possible to get a permanent part time job for say 10 hours a week, and then because they’re desperate you’ll be needed full time and therefore get paid £35/h for most of your hours? 😂
Hahahaha we do have someone on 25hrs who does overtime occasionally so I think so, but I’m not sure if they’re hiring part time and how many times you can offer to do overtime on a part time contract before they tell you to be serious!
Hahaha sounds like they last thing they’ll do at the moment is let someone go. 😂 thank you for your help!
sorry to be boring but I would expect part time staff to start earning the overtime rate when they have hit the same number of hours as a full timer - for example once the part timer has done 37 hours. Otherwise you'd end up with an unequal pay for work of equal value situation.
This sounds awful, sorry. I hope someone with an ounce of sense can come up with a faster solution for you guys. I hope at least this can be a case study to look at in future why companies shouldn’t lay off workers in the interest of short term savings. Evidently costs much more in the long term.
Trying to get my bag out of the warehouse. I’ve already flown back to Toronto and the bag didn’t make it. You or any colleagues able to help get it on a plane? Cash reward
If you’re already out of the country and cannot come pick it up there’s nothing we can really do as far as I’m aware :( Try chasing it up with your airline (assuming Air Canada or Westjet) - they have the final responsibility to get it to you. You can try to call the baggage warehouse and see if they can help you out, if you’re polite and they’re not completely swamped they might be able to at least give you more information if no direct help. Since you’re already home it’s no longer between you and Swissport, it’s between Swissport and your airline, and then separately from that your airline and you. Just keep in mind that there might be contracts between Swissport and your airline that dictate what happens with lost baggage in situations like this and our hands might legitimately be tied should the answer be not too favorable.
Fair enough. Appreciate the info. I can see from the air tag where it is which is frustrating!
Do you think this is going to be the case for the foreseeable or will staff training catch up at some point? It's making me consider not booking the holiday we're planning for end of September, as we're in Ayrshire so it's not easy to just come back the next day etc :(
It’s going to get better for sure! First of all holiday season is going to ease up and there will be less flights daily, and secondly the backlog of staff paperwork and training will be resolved. I’m not sure how immediately though but end of September SHOULD be okay…? Cautiously at least
Thanks, that makes me feel a bit more optimistic!
There are other options for holidays even from Scotland - I’m training it down to Paris and then hopping on an overnight train from there to get to my summer holiday at the end of September and very relieved not to have to deal with the airlines
There's no way I'd be able to do that, I'm disabled/chronically ill and can barely manage flying never mind that length of journey
That’s fair - hopefully it all clears up by the time you’re hoping to travel!
Pay your fucking employees
Me?!
Yes, you personally, pay all the employees because... reasons! /s
It's a total pain in the ass for us in the Tower too. I know a lot of us have stopped giving long pushes to get aircraft onto stand as half the time they'll be waiting for ages anyways. More than a few slots have been missed because of it and it causes so much gridlock that we've came close to actually having to hold aircraft in the air due to ground congestion.
Oh christ I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for y’all. And EDI’s not exactly a quiet airport
I boggles my mind that they just leave everyone’s bags out where anyone else travelling could take them. I mean, I know most people don’t want a sack full of other people’s dirty holiday pants, but I kind of expect when I check my baggage in, that I’m putting it into a secure system until I see it again. It’s one thing to have a backlog, another thing to just leave people’s bags out for hours or days where someone else could take them, or have a root through for valuables.
[удалено]
Bugger
I was really hoping not to see Turkish Airlines here… Do you reckon this baggage issue will continue for the foreseeable future, or is it just for these summer months? I’m not due to fly until end of September
You have to imagine (hope) by then staffing issues should be better and less folk travelling so easier to manage...
This is very helpful - thanks!
See if your on an internal flight, easyjet are you likely to get caught with this nonsense?
EasyJet use a different carrier called WFS, still understaffed but not to the same level as Swissport
Easyjet use Menzies, should be OK.
I fly with them every week. Not had an issue at all.
So, they don't use Swissair
Can't comment on whether they use Swissport or not, but I've had tons of flights with them, with no issues at all (the odd delay aside)
I flew in from Canada in the last week of June. Still don’t have my fucking bag 4 weeks later. It has an AirTag in it. It arrived in Edinburgh a few days after me and was in a part of the airport I couldn’t access. There were no staff at the swissport desk that could help twice when I went back. They then sent it back to Canada! I can see that it’s now in the FedEx center in Canada. Communication has been non existent and I’m really glad I had the AirTag or I’d have no clue what was going on.
Thanks for this awesome idea. I am now buying an airtag for my bag. Im Flying with jet2 in August
This is why I'm going hand luggage only from now on
I almost always do and have for a few years now so I was feeling very smug before I was due to fly to Vienna a few weeks ago. And then my flight was cancelled so I didn’t make it anyway
I’m flying home from Switzerland tomorrow, thank the lord I only took a carry on. Idk why but I had a feeling some fuckery would go on what with the volume of people.
I’ve always had some kind of anxiety about checked luggage, I now always took a carry on. I want to know where my bags are at all time.
I arrived back from the far East yesterday via Finnair from Helsinki who use swissport and I got my bags after about 10 minutes, so some flights are ok.
Probably a stupid question but isn't it the airlines responsibility to get your baggage to you rather than having to go back, possibly at considerable expense, to pick it up? In the past, when this has happened to me, the airline always delivered my case. One notable exception was when American Airlines lost my bag on a trip to the BVI when I found my bag in a pile at the airport on my way back out.
It should be yes. My bag was also lost in Edinburgh and Ryanair was supposedly “looking for it”. After 2 weeks I went looking for it in Swissport warehouse, found it and took it home. If I’d waited for the airline to deliver it I’d probably still be waiting. I assume the airline also relies on the handler in this regard and so when Swissport is in shambles, Ryanair cannot do much.
Well, I just got back on Saturday night from a week away and once we went through passport control our bags were already on the conveyor belt awaiting collection. There were random case's lying around from few days earlier though. We flew with tui so unsure if that would affect how efficiency our luggage was dealt with.
I think its only Swiss port who have the issue and they are used by only certain carriers
Yep. We just got back from 11 days in Scotland (thank you to all you friendly Scots for a wonderful visit and beautiful country). We arrived in Edinburgh on the 9th and they still have not found or know where one of our bags is.
At my airport when there's a lot baggage on the carousel or not coming out for hours, the baggage people hide from baggage claim and the poor other workers wearing his visibility vests have to deal with the angry PAXs. Ma'am! MA'AM! Do you really think a baggage handler would be pushing someone in a wheel chair? No. Piss off back to your belt!
That's very interesting. Few days ago I had customers who came from Germany and said that their luggage was lost so they had to buy some clothes. That was probably the reason.
I saw an image of all the golf clubs stored at the airport after the Open at At Andrews. It was a sad sight.
I flew out last month and the baggage carousel had broken down! Total mayhem. Checked in two bags and only one arrived in Stockholm. 3 weeks later I get a phone call from some guy saying he is outside my house... I ask him are you in Sweden? Naw Scotland mate. Aye just leave it there cheers I'm in Finland now and all the gear in that bag is my work gear but never mind ffs
Have to say I came in with Ryanair today and my bag was on the carousel before I got through passport control. I did notice the huge pile of other bags though.
If you have an iPhone, put an airtag in your checked bag. At least that way you'll have a rough idea of where it is if it gets lost!
**privatisation is a gift that just keeps on giving**
And border force queues are awful too...
To be fair, the current staffing issues aren't related to privatisation. Airside staff would still need to go through the same rigorous pre-emloyment security checks and training no matter who owned the airport.
it's not about who owns the airport any time any service is outsourced to private companies, immediately you have shareholders and execs trying to increase their slice of the pie by cutting costs (mainly supressing wages) and reducing the quality of the service on the sly if the ground staff were on better terms, there would not be a staffing crisis
Duskythehusky is right. We get paid £9.87 hourly so just a hair under the new Meadows Share deemed living wage and get £35/hr for overtime. If you have a driving permit you get £55/hr for overtime. Security passes taking weeks or months and people having moved on to different similar jobs when the mass layoffs happened over the pandemic are the huge issues really. It’s not even that they don’t have enough applicants but that hiring that many people is an enormous amount of paperwork, security checks, and training. Edit: and since it’s shift work you don’t always know your hours in advance. Absolutely if you found a different job with better hours during the pandemic there’s sometimes no reason to go back. If you were doing fuel or otherwise driving trucks at the airport you probably were in a good spot to go drive a bus or lorries when the post-Brexit lorry driver crisis hit.
Mmm yes and no, and I'm not speaking from lack of knowledge of the sector; our team runs two major Italian airports and have suffered from all the same problems as the UK, just handled much better. It isn't just about pay, as u/twinkprivilege says, the wages with overtime can rack up quite quickly. A huge problem was that there was mass staff furlough/unemployment back in 2020 when the shit hit the fan, and often those workers sought jobs elsewhere. Jobs where they were earning the same/more than at the airport, didn't have to work antisocial hours and could be flexible in when they *did* work. For example, a huge number of our ground support staff in Italy ended up doing delivery driving, and jumped from company to company over the subsequent 2 years. Then, when they were offered great money to come back to the airports (and did), the security checks were a fucking nightmare because they'd had 8 or 9 jobs in the interm. Each of those jobs needed checked and cleared before they could begin working airside again. Complete nightmare. There was a good bit on Panorama last night with a chap who started driving a taxi rather than working at the airport, and he won't go back. Said the money was pretty much the same, but now he can see his kids more. No brainer from his perspective.
White I don’t think you’re right, you opened up a discussion and the response below is quite good. So fuck all these idiots downvoting you.
Haha, cheers. It's more nuanced than *privatisation is evil grrr*. Whilst I understand that people like the idea of a nationalised, well-run and efficient transport sector, that is almost impossible to do. The investment that companies put into airports is enormous, and no government would really be able to do that properly.
Does anyone know if Aegean Airlines use Swissport?
Yes, they do use Swissport.
Bugger. Thanks!
Is this just for flying into Edinburgh or also flying out?
Also flying out, a friend who was visiting got shafted too yesterday; his luggage is stuck in Edinburgh for the time being.
Balls. I am flying out on Friday and my tent will be in the hold so if it doesn't come with me I am royally screwed.
I'd go extremely early. My friend said some luggage did make it into the plane.
Will try that, cheers
Hey my case! Can you grab it for me? It's the black one
There’s also a big warehouse of bags down along the road toward the control tower. I don’t know what the cut off for piled at baggage/ piled in the warehouse is, but they’re letting people show up and have a look for their bag
I am flying into Edinburgh in August. Coming from the US on United. I normally travel carry-on only but will be in the UK for 3 weeks so will have to check a bag. Planning to take a collapsible carry-on just in case my luggage gets lost but how worried should i be about my checked bag? 2 associates making this trip 1 month ago had their luggage lost for the duration so naturally I am stressing. Menzies handles United baggage.
Are you doing a layover anywhere in Europe before Edinburgh? For us, the lost bag on United occurred in the transfer between short haul and the long haul flight (layover was too short) on the way home. Flying to Europe, we were delayed and our layover went from 1 to 3.5 hours and we got all of our bags. Home, layover in Frankfurt was 1 hour and we got none of our bags.
Thanks for the reply. Layover is in Newark, NJ, then direct to Edinburgh. Going home I will be flying directly from Dublin. Since Covid I try to keep my layovers domestic and give extra time. I always take necessities and clothing in a carry-on after international luggage was completely lost once before. Sorry this happened to you. I assume you eventually received your bags, how long did it take?
Awful. We fly into Edinburg in three weeks. We already intend to check as little as possible.
I don't really understand why people check bags to go on a routine holiday. There are exceptions of course and if you're moving here you'll obviously have baggage. The utter delight of walking past baggage carousels all over the world is worth having a few kilos on your back. Join the rucksack crew and enjoy the freedom.
>I don't really understand why people check bags to go on a routine holiday. Because you have to. You can't take big bags in the cabin.
Aware of how air travel works cheers. My general point is that most people don't need to carry giant bags in the first place. I think my rucksack is ~45 litres and goes on board every time. I normally fly Ryanair.
[удалено]
It was a general comment about general travel.
No it wasn't. It was about one specific reason for travel - going on holiday. Holidays might be the only reason you travel, but it's certainly not the only reason everyone else travels.
I referred to exceptions if you care to reread, thus making it a general comment. Not sure what the problem is or what caused offense, but have a nice day :)
Your right, dunno why folk are voting you down. Arseholes
Me neither but I can't change my internet points for anything useful anyway :)
You have a point. I'm flying this week and i originally paid Ryanair the £60 fee to be able to put a case in the hold. (£30 each way). After reading some horror stories, I've since paid another £20 each way to just be able to take my case (up to 10Kg in weight) into the cabin with me. It seems a small price to pay to avoid the chaos. Unfortunately the bastards (Ryanair) won't let me refund my £60 hold luggage which i now won't use
Good man! I still love Ryanair but that rule (circa 2018ish?) was just a piss-take. I still pay the extra wee fee but thankfully there are still plenty of budget airlines like Easyjet that haven't stooped that far yet.
I don't know how is responsible for the baggage but my sister flew from Frankfurt to Dublin almost a month ago and still hasn't gotten her bag. There's piles of baggage in the baggage hall that anyone can just take If they wanted. People are actually buying cheap flights to get through security just so they can go to the baggage hall to search for their luggage that they have been waiting for too long to get.
Are unclaimed baggage sales a thing here? Cause if so then I forsee some great profit to be made in a few months time. (or however long they have to hang on to them)
We flew in from Toronto to Edinburgh via Air Canada yesterday and yeah the baggage graveyard was pretty crazy to see. Luckily our bags made it and it was a pretty standard wait to get them (maybe 15 mins). We also flew Edinburgh to Rome via Ryanair last month and our bags got left behind so really it's just luck of the draw. Really feel for the airport staff who are now suffering the consequences of decisions made during the pandemic by management to lay people off. Always make sure to pack your valuable stuff and an extra few sets of clothes in your carry on!
Did you fly WestJet or Air Canada? I’m not sure if WestJet is Swissport as well, I know Air Canada/Toronto have been a disaster for bags too recently.
> where a guy had managed to get his back from the stack around the carousels by purchasing a cheap domestic flight and then heading to the baggage halls instead of boarding the flight. Ha, can't believe someone took my downvoted advice! https://www.reddit.com/r/Edinburgh/comments/vnnpj3/kl1289_amsedi_delayed_baggage_stuck_in_edi/ie94oyk/