Originally Posted by
Angle of Attack
They are also offering pax from other ports to SYD and MEL do a days work pax home with $1000 bonus, tell me how much the casual workforce helps? Lol I’m just laughing at a bunch of new idiots that have no idea how the real world works…
Yet, Qantas and just about every other international airline and most of the world's domestic operations are conducted with outsourced workforces. Some of Virgin's airports in this country have customer service staff dressed as VA staff but employed by Swissport or someone else.
So, every other airline in the world can use outsourced ramp and baggage (including Qantas outside Australia and at many places within for many years, even going back to when domestic was 'TAA') but somehow Qantas is different. I think you might find that part of the reason at least, is the lack of work available during the pandemic has led people to find other work and many of them have not returned.
My reading of the situation from the recent delays at Sydney Airport, is that this is primarily the fault of a lack of security staff. Anyone who's spent
any time at an airport knows that security standards are set by regulation, the resources are also set at a minimum and if for whatever reason the minimum resources are not available, the standard is maintained by the process being slowed down. Not sure about VA but Qantas employs checked baggage screening and AAA at all it's domestic airports, including Sydney, so that process, when subject to a lack of security personnel, slows down check in as well. You can have a 100 check in staff but it won't make any difference if the belts keep stopping because of a lack of screening personnel downstream. There are several levels of screening that stop bags and/or diverts them to be further examined. If there aren't enough security staff then that process has to be stopped while they deal with each level of escalation.
With the call centre debacle, no dispute QF has itself to blame. My view is to not offshore the work - I'm sure that the offshore people are very competent and intelligent but basically, it's like Telstra, if you want outsource something to service a predominantly English-speaking market, then contract to someone who has staff that can identifiably speak the English language. The only slack that can be cut Qantas is that the call times have increased due to multiple questions about covid screening, etc. I believe I read somewhere where there were some problems with certain functions on their website as well which increased the number of calls.
Please watch the TV coverage, at least 50% of which has been from the VA terminal, with queues along the elevated roadway snaking back toward the Qantas terminal so this is obviously not just Qantas.
As for the lack of baggage staff, aren't VA having the same problem?? Is this a lack of baggage staff or is it because of delays up-line causing inbound arrivals to be delayed, thus stretching resources to the maximum and causing delays?? Not saying it's one or the other but inbound delays have knock-on effects that can cause disruptions and delays because the staff are rostered for a schedule.