Aero darat master thread

[KK Lee 5]

Find aero darat check in staffs are either poorly trained or don't take pride in their job. Unlike check in staffs of other airport and airlines; although they are idling, they don't signal next pax to come forward. It seems they are competing among themselves to ignore pax or keep idling the longest.

 

[JuliusWong 0]

9 hours ago, KK Lee said:

Find aero darat check in staffs are either poorly trained or don't take pride in their job. Unlike check in staffs of other airport and airlines; although they are idling, they don't signal next pax to come forward. It seems they are competing among themselves to ignore pax or keep idling the longest.

This seems to be normal occurrence in airports worldwide. Most, if not all major airlines, have divested or outsourced their ground service to third party company. Their employment terms are usually lesser than ideal from what they have been receiving when they were under the airline itself. Often long hours with minimum pay, but still need to fork out much money to eat at the airport. Some outsourcing companies even hire non-native to man the counters. That being said my encounter with AeroDarat was hit and miss. Some of them were very pleasant, some were just doing minimal smile.

My recent encounter with Swissport ground staff at Osaka Int'l Airport left too much to be desired for. I was flying AirAsia X, after long period of shadow ban. Ground staff were mostly non-local: Thai, Russians, Korean etc some barely speaking basic English language. Counter opened at 7:45am. Flight departing at 10:45am. I arrived at 8:00am. There were seven counters opened, two for premium customers, the rest for non-premium. There were no counter for online check in baggage drop and they did not divert the lines to premium lines even though there were no pax checking in there. It was so frustrating long check-in/baggage drop process. I only managed to drop my luggage and got my boarding pass at 9:25am. Boarding time was 9:45am. It was a mad rush to clear security check and immigration clearance. Thank God the security check was swift and there was no line at immigration counters. No time to explore the newly refurbished airside terminal.

[jahur 0]

Have a few schoolmates joined them after finishing studies under business or hospitality courses only to leave after just 1 year +. Most citing low salary and working conditions and constant unnecessary unrelated workload that is addedto their workscope. Also heard similar issues plaguing at other countries though the inner sentiment may be less shown or expressed towards passengers and the public.

[Pall 0]

Aerodarat aside, ground passenger handling agents are the most lowly paid and overworked jobs available out there. Most take up those positions as a filler while waiting for something better to come along.

Minimum wage, long working hours, tiny allowances during OT/Public holidays and the cost to work at airports don't come cheap. High parking fees, commuting to work as major airports are usually away from civilization. As mentioned in a previous post, its expensive to eat at airports even at staff canteens. 

Ground handling agents (passenger facing) are always the punching bag for passengers whenever there are delays, cancellations and unforeseen disruptions before flight.

Unless their remuneration structure is changed to uplift the level of agents akin to spokesperson position or hospitality ambassadors, one should not expect too much out of them. If there is anyone among them serving you above and beyond with a smile, its considered as a bonus. 

We can say all we want about taking pride in ones job, well how much of pride can there be when you are on minimum wage working more than 12hrs shift. To put things into context for the same pay one can get jobs sitting behind desk attending customer support livechat.