You would be a fool to deny that Swissport are in a mess at the moment. Someone said that they have turned into how Aviance used to be. Lets not forget many of Swissport's contracts came from Aviance (Mon, MYT, CY, FCA) due to airlines dissatisfaction with poor handling from Aviance. Swissport's battle now is to try and regain the quality of service that it did provide before the Flybe contract started (and pretty quick before contracts are lost). Unfortunately the service they offer to their other airlines has declined since April, and quite rightly these airlines aren't impressed and their patience is being tested.
On a positive note in the past, MYT (both lite and charter) were delighted with the improvement in OTP after they changed agents (5 aircraft based at the time some on 40min t/a), Monarch were overall happy with their handling prior to April and Swissport also provided a good level of handling for Duo who had 7 a/c based at bhx (ok it went bust nowt to do with Swissport). Swissport have steadily increased their portfolio of airlines up and till April when it took the large Flybe contract on. Maybe this was a step too far too quickly.
Since April Aviance do probably provide the better level of service, however they have the necessary staffing levels and experienced staff after loosing FLybe (loosing the contract allowed them to loose a lot of their less experienced staff) whilst Swissport have had to employ lots of people off the street. At present Swissport are turning into what Aviance used to be whilst Aviance are re grouping and are providing a good product (see jmc757 post re Aviance). Swissport still have potential to provide a good level of service, but they need to get their act together and quick.
All handling agents are the same, poor pay, lack of resources and insufficient time to allow for training in order to get bums on seats quickly. I think people should be wary of trying to play Avaince against Swissport, they both have the same problems, but they also both have some very capable under paid employee s who often go beyond the call of duty at times to get flight out on time.
As for the Flybe contract, I believe the decision not to have dispatcher's was forced upon BHX from above despite strong local opposition from the idea from all management at BHX. In fairness from what I have witnessed some of the team leaders have done remarkably well after being thrown into the deep end, however I believe a traditional dispatch model would have meant Flybe would have experience a better service up to now.
Anyway sorry to go on but I feel, airlines get what they pay for. If they pay peanuts to all handling agents then the level of service will decline. I think handling agents should stick together more rather than slagging each other off especially when they have the same restraints and experience the same problems. It's not a war.
Rant Over
Herman - Sorry for any spelling mistakes