Safety at Manchester

[Hen Ddraig]

I flew from MAN on 6 June as SLF on a Y Travel flight. No complaint about the flight, but the airport!
Arrived outside the My Travel checkins at 0730Z. Pax lined up on the sidewalk trying to get in. both enterances and the entire checkin area blocked with pax and luggage. The whole thing is an accident waiting to happen, any incident in the checkin area could leave dozens of casualties.
It took 70min to get to the checkin desks. the staff there were working treir socks off, just not enough of them.
Have seen this problem before at MAN in terminal 2 when they were trying to check in a full load for an A330 using just 2 chekin desks.

Is this another case of profit before safety.

[Captain Stable]

Hen Ddraig, I am sure you are doing yourself an injustice with that name!

And I suspect you've hit the nail on the head with your final line.

hawddamor! ;)

[SLT]

Dear Hen Draig!

I am sorry that you didn't have a good experience checking in for your flight! MyTravel Airways contract out all the check-in and ground handling at MAN to Servisair, who carry out all check-in and passenger handling on their behalf. I walked through the MyTravel check-in area the other day when there were 5 or 6 MyTravel flights leaving within an hour or so of each other. Two of those were DC-10s with full loads. There were queues as you decribe them - out of the door. There were 3 check-in desks open - 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:mad: There are loads of desks - no staff to run them. I asked the Servisair Duty Manager why there were only 3 desks open - not enough staff!!

It's no wonder that MyTravel score poorly in Customer Service ratings sometimes - they are not a bad airline - they, like many other airlines are consistently let down by their contractors. And it's not just the airlines that are being let down. The guys and girls on the front line of Servisair are being let down by their management. They work really hard - trying to do their best (most of the time!!;)) and their management refuse to allow them enough staff to do the job. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr:mad: :mad:

I hope you have a more positive experience next time you fly with MyTravel Airways. :)

[sky9]

?Travel checkin.
Possibly its down to the price in the contract.
;)

[HugMonster]

IMHO Servisair are an awful company.

Most of their front-line staff are excellent - hard working, and good at their jobs. They are, however, often very under-trained, and are certainly appallingly underpaid. As has already been pointed out, they are also very badly undermanned, at almost all stations where I've had experience of them.

The equipment is under-maintained as well. I've seen GPU's plugged in, and show a fault almost immediately. There's then a 10-minute wait for a serviceable machine. Take a note of the GPU's serial number, and you see it back the following day, still with the same fault...

Unfortunately, there is little incentive for their management to change the way they operate, as they have very little competition in the market place.

[tallseabird]

It's very easy to knock something, tell me who, as a third party handler is better than Servisair. Have you any idea how much a handling agent makes.
I'm not saying they are the best on the block, but I can tell you they haven't changed significantly in years and to me that means they are fulfilling a niche in the market, yes they (and other handling agents make plenty of mistakes) but they are cheap - and airlines like cheap.
Servisair have lost Ryanair at Stansted to Groundstar, I bet Servisair will be keen with their price when that contract comes up again, and I bet MOL knows that and if and when it comes up again then Groundstar will do their best.
It is a vicious circle which the airlines live with because they get it cheap.

[Miles2000]

Groundstar are part of Servisair.