Servisair or Aer Lingus

[EC-ILS]

Hey everybody.
This may sound like a strange situation when jobs in aviation are hard to come by but I have an option of Aer Lingus or Servisair.
Both are up until October but Im lokking at staying at either one for longer.
I know there is alot of people on here who work inside airlines and maybe EI and I was wondering if you would have any info on if they are planning to extend temporary contracts this year.
Ive been told that if I hang on in Serivsiar Ill most likely be kept on but I would prefer to work for EI but I want to look after the future.

So does anybody have any comments,suggestion???

[Irish Steve]

working with Aer Lingus, you'll be in a very unionised environment, and working basically on 3 aircraft types, 737, a32x and A330, and probably be limited in the things you get to do as a new arrival.

Servisair handle just about anything from Seneca (BAD news if you know what you're doing) to Antonov 124's and everything in between, so you'll get much more variety, but the working conditions are not great, the management are worse, and despite what you may have been told, there's no guarantees of any sort at the end of October, they always let most go, with the option to take some of them back next year.

Most of the guys on the ramp are good to work with, ramp controllers & duty managers have their moments and will shaft you if they can, above them are to be trusted about as far as you'd trust a snake.

Loading FCA 757's is bloody hard work, 6 tonnes off and 6 tonnes on in an hour, and you may well end up handling every bag.

The baggage halls are the pits, hard work, badly designed and laid out, noisy, bad lighting........

You'll get no life at weekends, as a temporary, you'll be rostered in just about every weekend for the summer, and if you want it, there'll be overtime for all the hours that you're not rostered.

Other than that, if you have the choice, the other thing is the money. I don't know what EI are offering, so can't compare it with SA.

[EC-ILS]

I wont be handling bags as Im im in passenger services :D

[Vin Diesel]

Passenger services, so that would mean check in or baggage tracing or something along those lines?

A mate of mine has just started in check in and enjoying it. Great people to work with, don't know about management.

Not too sure what their rosters are like but SA operate on a 24/7 basis so there will be plenty of earlies and lates.

Like Steve said, expect no weekends off, no holidays during the summer.

Come October, they will know how many of temps they can retain through the winter. SA recently got the American Airlines contract so thats a daily service, so that will keep a few temps in work through the winter.

But, being kept on doesn't guarantee you forty hours per week. So beware of that. A 24 hour a week contract isn't a lot of money to keep you going from november on. Granted ski flights start up again and youll get your hours going but the winter season is quieter so you may have some lean pay packets.

As for Aer lingus i don't know. Bear in mind that they are a scheduled operator so they have services year round. May be a better chance of retention there but i don't know for sure. Equally you could be in for the summer only and be out on your ear so either way beware.

AS for SA keeping you on, the main things they will look at are: Attendance(dont go sick) willingness to do overtime(always looked upon favourably) and finally general ability on the job, which i would guess is actually weighted less importantly than the other two.

General terms and conditions, I expect SA to offer around €11 ph, with some sort of attendance bonus based on weekends worked through the summer.

All in all, I had great time with SA when i was there. I was on the ramp and it is hard work, but you get used to it. Great ramp staff. Expect the occasional shafting from management, but such is life.

Despite Aer Lingus being in more of a PLC mode now than ever, its still very much unionised and I would expect they have the handier days work.

With their services being year round, I would wager you'd have a better chance of retention there than SA, but as i have ZERO experience of actually working there i could be way off the mark.

I dont know if anything of what i said helps, I hope it will, but either way best of luck for the job.

And, when you start working there you will truly get to appreciate what a disaster Dub really is, and the govt really ought to get the finger out and make a decision one way or the other, or better yet, set a match to the place and start again...

[blueb0y79]

EC-ILS

You have a PM

Blueb0y79

[redfield]

Irish Steve - hope that nobody in Servisair knows who you are, some of your comments could be construed as being a bit inflammatory to say the least. There's a time and a place to make such comments about Management and staff alike, don't think that making such remarks on a web forum was the best thought-out choice!
EC-ILS: passenger services = check-in. There'll be more variety working with Servisair as you'll check-in more airlines, each one wants something different so you'll probably learn more. Mind you, what has been said about temporary contracts is true; there's no guarantees although if the number of flights continues to rise there's a good chance you'll be staying! In the end, the choice is yours!:ok:

[Irish Steve]

Irish Steve - hope that nobody in Servisair knows who you are,

they probably do, but as I am now not working with SA, I can tell it like it was, and regrettably, it was every bit as bad as I've painted it. At the time I was there, the ramp manager was only semi literate, and had no concept of handling GA type aircraft, and I've got the computer memo's to prove it, as well as other reports.

Some of the problems are not down to SA, they are airport operator issues, but they are there.

In passing, if you're SA BRS, then if nothing else, you can keep your eyes open for a Copper/gold colour push back headset with a bright yellow cord, and a splitter to allow it to be used on things like a SAAB 340, as I had one that was loaned to a Seneca based at BRS, and it was supposedly returned to DUB on an FR flight. Only snag being it never got back to me, so that's $350 worth of headset that I'm down, as it was my personal property.

SA at other stations are not as bad as DUB. I've travelled through quite a few as both passenger and aircraft operator.

[redfield]

Ouch! Must be pretty bad then....

[Irish Steve]

Must be pretty bad then....

That's an understatement, though I'm not going to go into it now.

Cheers

[MONSOIRC]

Hi Irish Steve

I note from your comments that you appear to be very critical of SA

Is this because you were the Ramp Agent that was dismissed from SA in 2004 for trying to jump start an aircraft in DUB despite being instructed not to and leave it to the engineer?

I understand that the Labour Court Commission heard the appeal and ruled in favour of SA.

[Irish Steve]

Is this because you were the Ramp Agent that was dismissed from SA in 2004 for trying to jump start an aircraft in DUB despite being instructed not to and leave it to the engineer?

It's very easy to make the statements hang someone when they are prepared 10 days after the incident.

The first the Duty manager who started the whole thing knew of what was going on was when he was asked to witness the meeting of suspension, 10 days later. At that time, he had not even been asked for a statement.

No one saw what was done at the aircraft. No one was able to say who did what, and no complaint or comment was made by the aircraft operator, who departed safely and happily.

There is a lot more to this "incident" than was revealed in any discussions or papers that were presented.

Given the number of other incidents and activities that have happened at DUB, where the individuals concerned had no action taken against them, I know what I know.

The Labour court ruled that the procedure was fair, they did not rule on the validity of the reason for dismissal.

[redfield]

So is that a yes or a no then?????:ok:

[Irish Steve]

So is that a yes or a no then

I would have thought it was pretty clear, yes.

So, to avoid any misunderstandings, let's clarify my "crime", for which I was fired only on the basis of the fact that I did not deny the truth, if I had done so, as no other person was present at the aircraft to see what happened, there would have been no case to answer.

The aircraft concerned was a GA Seneca, an Air ambulance, and he had ferried a transplant organ into DUB. On his way over, his headset had failed on the flight from the UK to DUB, and he got stuck at DUB.

The SA duty manager asked me if I had my (personal) headset, and when I said I had, asked me to "see if you can get yer man out of trouble".

I did.

Several people already knew before I got involved that he also by now has a flat battery through too much testing to try and fix his headset, he'd used the phone in Ops to discuss it with the base, and to try and solve the problem, without success up till then, as he had no headset he could use, and no hand microphone for the aircraft.

The Pilot had agreed with his engineering manager what was needed to get him going.

I checked it out, and as I have qualifications that meant I'd been trained to do a lot more than was needed to sort this, I saw no problem with it, and neither did the aircraft captain.

Without going into the complex technicalities, as it was a GA type, rather than a commercial airline aircraft, I was one of the few people on the airfield that could assist him legally. Line maintenance engineers could not assist him, they are not trained on GA aircraft.

SA had previously used my external licences and qualifications to get me to perform tasks that they had not specifically trained me for, and this (as far as I was concerned) was no different, and I'd done the same before on my own aircraft several times, as well as being signed off on external power starts as part of professional training.

At the last moment, a manager intervened, without knowing anything about what was happening.

I had a choice. Strand an air ambulance aircraft for at least 3 hours, and arrive late at my next flight, which was also going to mean deep s:mad:t, or finish what had already been agreed, and get him out, which took all of 90 seconds, so I would get to my next flight on time, which I did.

I helped him out, and in the same circumstances, I'd do exactly the same again, I wasn't about to see an air ambulance stranded for the lack of someone that knew what they were doing.

No one witnessed the start, no one even mentioned it to me for over 10 days, and no reports were written by "involved" people until after I'd been suspended. If I'd turned to the ramp manager and denied being "involved" when he first raised it, no one could have proved different. The captain was happy, and if I hadn't been 100% happy with what we were doing, it wouldn't have been done.

As far as I was concerned, my licences covered what I did, and SA had been happy for me to do other tasks for which they'd not trained me on the strength of that professional licence. This time, they chose not to.

I have my own opinions as to why, and they have very little to do with the way I did the job, and a lot to do with some people not liking the fact that I knew a damn sight more about what I was doing than they did.

SA's training is very good as far as it goes, but there is nothing type specific in a lot of it, which means that there are massive risks to people that don't know. As an example, rampers will often move props to fit restraints on (say) a Dash 8-300, the airline requires it, and at times, a prop will be turned to allow access to panels.

If a ramper did the same on a Seneca, without knowing exactly how to turn it, under certain circumstances, that engine could start, and kill the person. There's NOTHING in SA training to cover this.

I got fired for doing a job, and doing it professionally. One of the trainers, when asked by management what he would have done said something like "exactly the same". They chose to ignore that.

A few weeks earlier, a DC8 diverted into DUB. There was no pushback bar on station, so (with the commanders agreement), it was pulled back off stand so that it could leave by placing cargo straps around the main gear to pull it. That's not SA procedure, and the person who did it was not trained to do that by anyone, but he's still there.

Another lead agent was reported for putting chocks and ground power on to an HS748 while both engines were still live, at ground idle, in direct contradiction of SA procedure, even more important on this type, as there was fatal accident on a 748 a few years ago. He got a verbal warning.

The ramp manager removed the by pass pin on an A300 before removing the push back bar, and it was only luck that the ramp agent standing beside the bar didn't get 2 broken legs as the bar swept him out of the way. Nothing was said, despite the clear danger of what was done.

Another manager did serious damage to a main deck hi loader by attempting to get an MD11 engine out of a 747 by using the lowering platform to pull the engine with cargo straps connected to it. It didn't work, and did serious damage. Nothing was said, but it was a procedure for which he hadn't been trained.

A ramp agent (not me) had a battery mulag catch fire. He got serious grief from Aer Rianta because the fire extinguisher on the unit was unservicable. Later, he checked all the battery equipment, and reported 15, yes fifteen unservicable fire extinguishers. A month later, they still had not been replaced, but nothing was said about it.

A Euroceltic F27 had it's nose wheel lifted off the ground by a push back tug when the lead agent went to connect up, and the tug jumped suddenly, due to a sticky throttle. That delayed the aircraft. I had reported the fault to the maintenance manager at least 6 times, but nothing had been done about it, and at least twice, the tug had been returned to service without any action being taken.

That's just a few reasons for my total lack of respect for some of the SA DUB management.

Not the ramp staff, they never gave me less than 110%, and always worked well for me.

I could say a lot more, but what's the point, I think it's been made pretty clear that there are some serious issues with SA at this station.

I'm doing other things now, but that doesn't stop me seeing and hearing on a regular basis about some of the things that still happen regularly.

The standards imposed on flight crew, airlines and aircraft maintenance are very high. The standards imposed on ramp handling are at times non existent. Somewhere, that's a danger to all involved. It's time that was changed, partly by having people on the ramp that have formal aviation training, so that they understand what they are doing, and how it affects the aircraft. That's not there at the moment, and before long, it will lead to a serious accident. That's unacceptable.

[redfield]

Good grief! A simple "yes" would have been quite sufficient. But I agree with your last statement: it would be unacceptable.