Handling Fees!!!

[Yeah Whatever]

WHAT ROUTE SHOULD WE BE GOING DOWN IN THIS INDUSTRY?
IF THE AIRLINES WANT A QUALITY SERVICE, THEY SHOULD REALISE THAT IT IS TIME THAT THEY PUT THEIR HANDS IN THEIR POCKETS AND PAID A CORRECT AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR THE SERVICE THEY EXPECT.

CHEAP AND GOOD DOES NOT EXIST.
IF YOU WANT GOOD YOU MUST PAY,
OTHERWISE CHEAP AND NASTY WILL INVARIABLY FOLLOW, JUST AS NIGHT FOLLOWS DAY.

THE CIRCUS ORGANISATION IS A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF THIS, ALL THE AIRLINES COMPLAIN AND MOAN ABOUT THEM, BUT THEY ARE NOT PREPARED TO PAY THE EXTRA MONEY THAT IT WOULD COST TO GO TO A QUALITY COMPETITOR.
VIEWS PLEASE!!

[Fernando_Covas]

But are there any good handling agents out there now? At the end of the day, they are all as bad as each other. Blame Ryanair or Easyjet for demanding the lowest cost for handling forcing other airlines to do the same. Look at the level of service you get from Ryanair or Easyjet. Everyone wants something for nothing.

[captainbritboy]

Whilst the lo-cost carriers have opened up travelling by air as an option previously unavailable to many people, there are losers as well as winners.

In the mid-seventies, my parents took my sister and I on holiday to Lanzarote. It was the first time I'd travelled on an airliner. When I got back to school, it transpired that I was the only child in a class of thirty kids to have ever flown abroad. How times have changed. The prestige of travelling by air is a dim and distant memory. Now anyone can fly to Nice and back cheaper than going on the train from London to Birmingham.

I just wanted to put in my tuppence worth to this forum. Sooner or later the bubble is going to burst. I think the whole lo-cost 'concept' is unsustainable. Handling agents are already being squeezed, and the less money there is coming in, the less there is to be spent on providing a decent service. It is a usual sight to see a lone stressed out PSA checking in an entire A320 on their own. The passengers rarely complain though, as they know the score.

'...Sorry you've had to wait so long to check-in Sir, but you'll find a national carrier in the North Terminal who will gladly check you in in half the time, but charge you twice as much...'

The cost to the consumer of travelling by air is now way out of balance to realistic operational costs. Not just to handlers, but to every service provider involved in the business of getting the aircraft from point to point.

In summary, I'd like to play devil's advocate by suggesting that, travelling by air ought not to be 'the god given right' to every, thug, dole scrounger, and student. The airlines need to work together to steadily increase the air-fares to an acceptable commercial level, so that we can all benefit including, ultimately, the consumer. A cartel would bring back some level of self-respect to the industry.

[Maude Charlee]

Part of the problem is that the handling agents don't have people with the right management ability to deliver what is required. Because the lo-cos have primarily gone into regional airports, the agents there have gone from one flight a month to perhaps 60+ movements a day. Most of the management are people who have gradually moved up the organisation from within, or moved across from a fairly junior role elsewhere at another regional airport. they just haven't got the experience to deal with the increase in pace and complexity.

Sure, most of the equipment is old and knackered, but issues like training, scheduling and communication are all within the control of the management at very little or no expense. This is where the operation inevitably falls down, and because managers don't want to hear about constant problems in these areas they lock themselves away in the office. They're OK, earning nice little bonuses fiddling departure times and delay codes so why worry?

Replace them with some decent managers who are going to be held accountable for their station's performance (including an element of customer satisfaction), and things would improve for everybody. Staff would be trained and able to do their job properly, people would be available when they were needed rather than when some dizzy so-and-so decides to put them in a schedule, and everybody would be kept in the picture with regard to the operation so problems can be dealt with as they arise, rather than when it costs a lost contract.

[captainbritboy]

Maude Charlee...

... a lot of what you have said makes sense. A lack of experience in supervision/management in any commercial environment, in particular one with the growth rate recently seen in aviation, is going to cause problems. Aye, and there's the rub...

... non-graduates with no real concept of management (and little commercial) experience are being given executive roles which they are ill-equipped to handle.

So coming back to the original subject of this thread, it is all about yield. It's all very well to suggest that sub-standard handling can be solved by the appointment of top management, but top management costs money, and if the lo-cost carriers are going to continue to squeeze the handlers, then where exactly does this money come from?

It is high time that the airlines sat around the table to negotiate a cartel to increase the much needed revenue that needs to be generated to ensure the future of the industry and the livelihoods of the many who depend on it.