RyanAir are (in)famous for their tratment and lack of respect for passengers with restricted mobility. The wheelchair debarcle ar STN is soley a product of the AOC led by GO. The AOC wanted a cheaper contractor back in April so invited companies to tender. ADI won the contract on a cheap bid - Thanks to GO heading the AOC the passengers at STN now get what GO andthe other low costas are prepared to pay ie ****** all. The incumbant supplier of wheel chairs felt ADI would screw up badly and stayed at the airport doing CASH wheelchairs can you believe. Ryan air are so tight that if you don't have your own wheel chair they wont supply a free push to the gate. You have to pay CASH to a wheel chair operator to get a chair and a push. ADI wouldn't touch the CASH work - what a PR nightmare - so the other lot continued to provide this. Back in November it became obvious that CASH wheel chairs alone were not going to pay the bills, so 60 days notice was given to Ryan air that the cash wheelchairs had to stop. ADI still refused to take the cash so now you have a crap service from ADI and NO service to Ryan air passnegers unless you have your own wheelchair. STN airport management should be ashamed they have allowed them selves to be bullied by Ryan air and have not insisted that Ryan Air provide a full wheelchair service to their passengers. MOL should be thoroughly ashamed that his everso profitable company does not pay for wheel chairs at STN. ADI, The AOC, BAA (who run STN) and Ryan Air are all equally miserable for allowing this situation to occur. There now you know that it's not always the handling agents fault - I think Servisair do a fair job in the face(s) of adversity at Stansted

Thin Controller : The Servisair / Globeground Merger is off as far as i know...

At Man all Servisair baggage facilites staff now work for Globeground and Globeground handle USAir with servisair sorting baggage and Globeground ramp. And it works well NO delays

On another note,

The Air2000 at man i dont know for sure if and whos its been signed too but Servisair and Globeground are the two mentioned.

Also whilst having glasses pressed against walls,. .Air Scandic leaving groundstar and Emerates moving to T2 and handling agent all in MAN again only can think of Servisair and Globeground able to handle them Aviance are looking busy these days.

Anybody know of any truth and why of these???

As far as the Servisair/Globeground merger being off goes, this is a surprise. Penauille Polyservice SA of France own 51% of Globeground with a commitment to buy the rest at some point this year, as well as owning all of Servisair. Things may have gone a bit quiet, but I doubt that they are off. I may be wrong but I'd be surprised. And as far as Servisair goes with respect to quality, it is very hard to get staff to provide top quality because you cant pay them enough due to the "no-frills" airlines expecting "frills" handling at ridiculous prices. The rates that Go, Easy, Ryan etc get are unsustainable for the handling agents, especially as theres always one that is prepared to buy market share until one goes bump. And then when an agent goes bump, and the agents try to get reasonable prices, the airlines then go and whine to the airport authority that a lack of competition is driving up prices (see LGW Ogden, GHI, Servisair). Vicious circle, unfortunately, which is why we are seeing all these alliances in Handling, because this is one way to get economies of scale. Anyway good luck to all my ex colleagues at Servisair, and also to any poor put upon handler! They all want to do a good job you know. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

I think we are losing the wider picture in regard to Servisair.. .I have to agree with another gent that Servisair. .handle some very big names.. .I think we live in very difficult times. And the sharks are out there waiting to pounce and undercut everyone.. .So lets have a bit of human kindness for those who have lost their jobs.

This copyrighted story from ATI below should help. If anyone can shed light on exactly why Ryanair dropped Servisair at STN I'd appreciate it online or offline. Uncharacteristic silence from all concerned at present.

Menzies/GlobeGround disentangle UK handling ops. .Kieran Daly, London (08Jan02, 10:05 GMT, 271 words)

. .UK ground handler Menzies Aviation Group (MAG) has sealed two deals with Penauille Polyservices-controlled GlobeGround that tidy up a complex situation left by the flurry of ownership changes in the industry over the past 18 months.

Under the terms of a deal announced this morning, MAG will buy out GlobeGround’s 20% shareholding in the Menzies World Cargo, bringing that unit entirely under its own control; and it will sell to GlobeGround its 49% holding in the GlobeGround (UK) passenger operation, handing that business to GlobeGround.

The cargo transaction is for £5.1 million and the passenger deal for £5.8 million.

Some sort of rationalisation has been on the cards ever since Lufthansa agreed in May last year to sell GlobeGround to Penauille of France, which had earlier acquired UK ground-handler Servisair. That sale is structured in two parts for tax reasons, 51% of the company having been transferred already and the remainder scheduled to be handed over in June this year.

Menzies and GlobeGround, when it was under Lufthansa control, had formed an 80:20 joint venture a year earlier to provide cargo handling in the UK under the Menzies World Cargo banner - a relationship which made little sense once GlobeGround came under the control of Menzies’ arch-rival Penauille.

Their passenger operations were controlled in a 49:51% overall joint venture called GlobeGround UK which raised similar issues once the Penauille deal went through.

The main cargo operation affected is MAG’s London Heathrow handling operation, but the company has smaller outstations at several UK airports.

For Penauille, the deal cements its position as one of the world’s leading ground-handlers following the Servisair acquisition.

. .Source: Air Transport Intelligence news

Things may not be so bad for the Servsiair staff at STN. I beleive Servsiair are bidding for the British Airways contract so perhaps losing Ryanair won't be such a blow after all.

Things are looking up at MAN too. Effective from 0001 on 21st March 2002, Air2000 will once again be checked in and despatched by Servisair. Bye Bye Groundstar MAN????

The Servisair/Globe Ground merger is sitll planed to go ahead at some point but is just on hold while both compaines ride out the post sept 11th storm. Its still unclear as to how they will be merged, Globe into Servisair, Servsiair into Globe or a complete rebrand (probably not succh a bad idea?!)

[ 30 January 2002: Message edited by: SZD ]</p>

The BA contract??? as far as I am aware BA fly to one destination from STN, that is Manchester. And I believe they fly it a maximum of three flights a day. That gives servisair three turn arounds compared to the 100+ that they are doing for FR.

SDZ. .Think you will find the date to be,

0001, 12th March 2002, NOT 21st

Do you know what ops_bored, I think you're right <img src="tongue.gif" border="0">

The Servisair / GlobeGround Merger is not 'off'. The companies will continue to work as seperate units where both are present at individual airports. Out of the approx 180 airports worldwide, SA and GG only cross at, I think its 6 airports with MAN the biggest headache. All further expansions will come under the GG name.

Not sure of the Scandic / EK roumers at MAN. Would be interested anyone can shed any light on this.

I think it could be goodbye to Groundstar MAN. Too many handlers anyway.

thin_controller:

I've heard that EK want(?!) to move to Servisair at MAN and as soon as they can dump BA they will . True or not?, I really don't know. As for Scandic, I reckon they'll probably go back to Aviance.

I feel sad for all the Servisair staff at STN, It is a real pity that Servisair management could not be imaginative enough to come up with a way to keep the business, I for one will be avoiding Ryanair for the next couple of months until Groundstar have got there s*!t together.

Oh dear! I hope Groundstar at Stansted are better than Groundstar at MAN...!! <img src="eek.gif" border="0">

Well, no complaints about Groundstar from me.. .Our lovely despatcher tonight had time to nip up to the terminal and buy me a Dr Pepper, and still got us away 5 minutes early.. . <img src="cool.gif" border="0">

ServisAir was great when owned by B&C - it went down hill when the Northeners took over!!. .ECKY Thump XXX

Only a few more seasons have you got a problem with people from the north!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok I wrekon that we have slagged enough people off here shouldnt this thread be closed now?

I see Servisair is popular here <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> . Just my 2 cents: I was riding on jumpseat of our aircraft into SNN, where we used Servisair. I was very surprised with crew apron transport they provided. It was old Toyota or VW minibus, seats were covered with.. i don't know what it was, but looks like a sh*t, there was some hand tools droppped between passenger seats, several oil cans were also there. But the funniest thing was the passenger's sliding door: first it took 5 attempts to close it and then it dismantled and fell to the ground(!!) during apron ride. I haven't faced such things even in Tripoli and Kinshasa.. .Second time, again in SNN, Servisair delayed ad-hoc charter for 6 hours due to lack of manpower to load 5 tons (bulk)! Only after captain paid 500 bucks DIRECTLY to their loaders (without any receipts), the load process was started.

Without shooting from the hip, go and check how much your company pays Circusair for crew transport - you might just find that what you got was good service for the price you pay. A lot of people assume that crew transport is part of a standard contract and guess what it is an optionbal extra!!!!

With regards to crew transport, Groundstar is no better!

Not all Groundstar stations are bad, NCL are average, though I see Servisair at NCL are set to regain the Britannia contract, after 10 years.

Good Luck to all ground agents, if they didnt do their job, we wouldn't have ours and as ive mentioned before their morale is often quite low, so go on cheer them up a bit! Say thanks and well done when its warranted.

Congrats Servisair NCL! <img src="cool.gif" border="0"> <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0"> <img src="wink.gif" border="0">