Cloud1
I heard this in the office last week, attributed to a source inside Flybe who was smacking their head against the wall because of the latest batch of delays.
Problems doing the rounds recently include only having one driver on shift and no headset trained staff on one morning, bags missing flights (sometimes all the bags), Airport staff taking over the BSA as there weren't enough Menzies staff capable of working in there, half the staff sent to EMA to cover the Flybe startup there, not enough staff to cover leave and sickness.
If half of that is true then I can understand why there would be a sickness problem, the staff must be under an incredible amount of pressure to get the job done
It would seem that flybe's desire to keep handling costs down could be coming back to bite them. Everyone who has handled them since they started their expansion at BHX has had the same problem, flybe don't want to pay what it actually costs to provide the service levels they put in the contract. The handling agents always hope that other contracts can help cover the deficit, which may be fine until the aircraft start going off schedule when the impact hits the other airlines and service levels fall across the board. Aviance got dragged down, then Swissport and now Menzies. The first two managed to get their reputations moving back up after losing the contract, Menzies don't have that luxury.