The Curious Incident of the DUB flight at Stansted in the evening

Mebuntu

I arrived back at Stansted yesterday evening (Tuesday) for an FR flight to DUB. As usual the gate for the flight went up on screen 45 minutes in advance and I set off for Gate 45. When I got to the Pier, however, the flight was nowhere to be seen on any of the screens that were depicting the upcoming action at gates 40-59. Had I misread the screen in the waiting area? Surely not, but, then, familiarity and all that.

Anyway, I went up to Gate 45 where a large number of people were gathered. There was an aircraft parked outside but the screen at that gate was blank. Now, I'm usually in the last 20 to board so no hurry but, out of curiosity, I asked people there what flight they were queueing for and they said Glasgow. Hmm. I then went back down to the main info desk and, still with my flight missing from the screens, asked the girls where was it? They told me they were just about to make an announcement that the flight was delayed due to the inbound going to be late. They seemed surprised when I pointed out that the flight was no longer on their screens. I wandered off up to a quieter area to sit and watch proceedings.

The Glasgow flight sat there - and sat there - and sat there and then finally pushed back after the time when our (late) inbound was supposed to be due.

It, eventually, got going and, eventually, our inbound arrived at the gate. The front door was opened and the steps came down. I expected to see the back steps rushed into position to assist in the speedy disembarkation to avoid further delay. Nah. Swissport must have been either on a go-slow or the staff were on tea-break but the back door remained firmly in the closed position with no sign of life. The snail-like front disembarkation continued.

Round about this time I noticed that the queue for Gate 45 had got longer - much longer. The chances of all these people getting on board the same plane wasn't looking good. About 15 minutes after the arrival of our inbound a lone Swissporter arrived at the back of the aircraft with a set of steps. This operation was performed so slowly you could almost read his mind saying, "No the xxxx way are any of these passengers getting on my steps".

By now the queue for Gate 45 was looking like they were waiting on a 380. I got up from my now much noiser area and, out of curiosity, asked them what flight they were queueing for. The answer was Billund. Hmm. On walking back down to the Gate 45 desk it was packed. Besides the long queue a lot of people were just hanging around. Only one girl was there trying to deal with the boarding passengers, checking boarding passes and passports and putting yellow labels on cases. I looked up at the screen above her and noted that my flight to DUB was now back on it but was showing CLOSED and a flight to Billund was now BOARDING.

Had I not been a frequent flyer I would most certainly have been panicking. Here we were at Gate 45. The flight to DUB was "closed" (despite the inbound aircraft still being disembarked) and they were boarding for Billund. The family of people next to be dealt with by the girl produced something like 6 sets of documents - all for Billund. The poor girl kept her head very well as she explained, to their bemusement, that she was only boarding passengers for Dublin. At that moment an announcement came over the tannoy for "any available free staff to proceed to the desk at Gate 48" further up the building.

It transpired that the long "380 queue" was comprised of various batches of DUB and Billund passengers scattered here and there along the way. Another ten minutes went by and another staff member came along the queue asking Billunders to get off the queue and sit down and await developments. This certainly decimated the queue. Another ten minutes went by before another announcement was made that Billund was changing to Gate 43 at which point those for that flight who had been waiting behind the DUBS to be first on that queue got the charge going.

Meanwhile the DUB passengers, some of whom had been standing queuing at the gate for more than an hour, slowly began to get moving, all the while managed by just the one brave girl. The flight finally departed an hour and a quarter late.

During all of this chaos inside, the absence of any announcements was notable.

That was my first transit through STN for a good while and I don't know if there are ongoing desk staff shortages there but the performance there last evening was poor in the extreme (except for the valiant efforts of the girl). The screen garbage didn't help either. After all these years of aviation it seems the impossible thing to achieve for the benefit of passengers is correct and up-to-date information at airports.

The seating in the waiting lounge is still hopelessly inadequate. If it was that bad on a Tuesday evening I can only imagine how much worse it must be at Summer weekends and holiday periods.

Anyone expecting a 25 minute turnaround these days will be sorely disappointed. I can say with some certainty that, at least over the past 6 months and probably longer, any FR flight I have been on ex-any UK airports to DUB has been late departing.

PS, DUB Passport queue was about 3 minutes at about 22.30 a big improvement on previous although it must be said I usually arrive busy periods either Fri/Sun. All passports were being scanned from what I could see.

Locker10a

Sounds like your bog standard organised chaos of a tightly squeezed handling agent, pretty standard these days but means a miserable experience for passengers and and total lack of care, investment and accountability from what ever agency you encounter handling your flight

View Profile

Regarding the ground handling in the UK, ie Swissport, it is the worst in Europe that I have encountered. Overworked and understaffed being a major contributing factor but the staff just always seem to be on a go-slow.
Nearly always late pushing back.

Even the Sicilian groundstaff seem efficient by comparison!

Locker10a

View Profile wrote: »

Regarding the ground handling in the UK, ie Swissport, it is the worst in Europe that I have encountered. Overworked and understaffed being a major contributing factor but the staff just always seem to be on a go-slow.
Nearly always late pushing back.

Even the Sicilian groundstaff seem efficient by comparison!

I can honestly say the same for Menzies

View Profile

plodder wrote:

I saw a post somewhere else that made a good point. There wasn't any realistic chance that this flight would have tried to land on top of four planes ready to take off. But what if the taxiway was empty at the time? The pilot wouldn't have asked what the lights were, and might have just continued with the landing, and then who knows what might have happened?

And Aviator before they went bust.

IngazZagni

Swissport are severely understaffed in Stansted. Now whether that is on purpose or they just simply can't get the staff I don't know. In a way it's Ryanairs fault. They insist on paying as little as possible for the service and it shows in the form of chaos. Makes them look like an amateur outfit.

Ryanair have recently been complaining that people are "taking the pi**" in regards how much luggage they bring on board. Well it's no surprise really as there is zero enforcement at the gates. One staff member to check boarding passes and passports. That same staff member also tagging bags to go into the hold. The last thing that person has time for is to get into a confrontation with a passenger about having a bag that is too large and I don't blame them at all. The flights are already delayed at this stage.

Edit: oh and if you think Dub passport control is bad you should try Stansted passport control at night when coming from mainland Europe. It's nothing short of disgraceful.

hunter164

Stansted Airport is a nightmare. Never fly into that place anymore as it is absolute carnage all the time.

Irishweather

Stansted is OK, the only thing that is a pain is the security. I was last through there in June and it took me an hour to get through security. This was because, they cut off the security area from 20 lines to only 4, then they introduced a new procedure where you everyone had to get their bag scanned. So as one can imagine, that took quite a while to do, in an airport with 24 million passengers per annum.

Irishweather

hunter164 wrote: »

Stansted Airport is a nightmare. Never fly into that place anymore as it is absolute carnage all the time.

Probably because you're flying from Dublin and have to go through the foreign area. It's not too bad from Belfast.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Irishweather

The OP just said that their flight to Dublin went through the European Portocabin area, which is a significant distance from the terminal.

Most of my flights in three years have went through the domestic area, which is gates 86-89. Sometimes Easyjet sends me on the train to the International Terminal, but never to the European Portocabin.

hunter164

Irishweather wrote: »

hunter164 wrote: »

Stansted Airport is a nightmare. Never fly into that place anymore as it is absolute carnage all the time.

Probably because you're flying from Dublin and have to go through the foreign area. It's not too bad from Belfast.

Flying in is fine but flying out is crazy. If you don't buy the fast pass for security you could easily be hours trying to get through it. Especially on a Sunday evenings when getting a late flight home to Dublin. There's little to no organisation and people running for flights everywhere.

The Veteran

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Flying from Dublin you are treated as domestic. You bypass the foreign area completely.

Fred, you're not treated as domestic on a CTA flight, CTA flights still clear customs (may not feel like it but you do) whereas domestics don't so domestics and CTA flights enter Terminals differently.

Irishweather

hunter164 wrote: »

Flying in is fine but flying out is crazy. If you don't buy the fast pass for security you could easily be hours trying to get through it. Especially on a Sunday evenings when getting a late flight home to Dublin. There's little to no organisation and people running for flights everywhere.

Yeah Stansted needs to bank their flights at different hours.

billie1b

IngazZagni wrote: »

Swissport are severely understaffed in Stansted. Now whether that is on purpose or they just simply can't get the staff I don't know. In a way it's Ryanairs fault. They insist on paying as little as possible for the service and it shows in the form of chaos. Makes them look like an amateur outfit.

Ryanair have recently been complaining that people are "taking the pi**" in regards how much luggage they bring on board. Well it's no surprise really as there is zero enforcement at the gates. One staff member to check boarding passes and passports. That same staff member also tagging bags to go into the hold. The last thing that person has time for is to get into a confrontation with a passenger about having a bag that is too large and I don't blame them at all. The flights are already delayed at this stage.

Edit: oh and if you think Dub passport control is bad you should try Stansted passport control at night when coming from mainland Europe. It's nothing short of disgraceful.

Ryanair are paying Swissport around £12.00ph per staff member, Swissport in return are paying their staff around £9.00ph, the rest is profit for the company. They're supposed to have a certain number of employees to handle Ryanair a/c, a certain amount for Easyjet etc but they can't get/keep the staff, they're being over worked and underpaid with no real benefits. Same can be said for the agency in Dublin, Ryanair pay €15ph per staff member and the agency in return pay the staff €10.79 but it's a revolving door as they're over worked and underpaid with **** benefits and no thanks.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

billie1b

Fred Swanson wrote: »

So Ryanair have no actual groundstaff of their own anywhere?

In Dublin they have their own staff but also agency staff, it's about 50/50 between them.

The Veteran

billie1b wrote: »

In Dublin they have their own staff but also agency staff, it's about 50/50 between them.

In Dublin, if you look at a person's airport badge it will tell you if they are directly employed or "contract".

If the badge is green (i.e. Predominantly green except for the photo and writing) or navy then the staff are direct staff. If the badge has mostly yellow on it, they are contract\agency staff.

Ryanair has plenty of staff in Dublin but they also have 320 plus daily aircraft movements. Only Aer Lingus and Ryanair self handle in Dublin. Everyone else uses Swissport or Sky. Swissport have the majority.

billie1b

The Veteran wrote: »

In Dublin, if you look at a person's airport badge it will tell you if they are directly employed or "contract".

If the badge is green (i.e. Predominantly green except for the photo and writing) or navy then the staff are direct staff. If the badge has mostly yellow on it, they are contract\agency staff.

Ryanair has plenty of staff in Dublin but they also have 320 plus daily aircraft movements. Only Aer Lingus and Ryanair self handle in Dublin. Everyone else uses Swissport or Sky. Swissport have the majority.

The majority if that is correct but some agency staff also have navy Ryanair ID's as the can do escorts and othet stuff like servcing aircraft toilets and water etc, even though they are agency they still have the Ryanair colour ID.

Locker10a

Fred Swanson wrote: »

So Ryanair have no actual groundstaff of their own anywhere?

I'm certain that all Ryanair flights at NOC are handled by in house Ryanair staff, some of whom have been there 20+ years where's EI, Flybe etc are handled by NOC ground handling.

The Veteran

billie1b wrote: »

The majority if that is correct but some agency staff also have navy Ryanair ID's as the can do escorts and othet stuff like servcing aircraft toilets and water etc, even though they are agency they still have the Ryanair colour ID.

The navy simply means you can access the ramp - if they are not Ryanair direct staff they should be wearing navy with yellow. Escorting is a different issue - don't need to be a direct employee to have escort rights. They could however be employees of a "regulated entity" in their own right.

Trust me, wearing my work hat, the levels of access some people have around the place is a "cause of concern"

Anyway, back on topic, there are some poor wages around the airport game in general considering the shift work and 7 day working involved. Always plenty of staff moving jobs and hopping from one to the other employer. Airlines seeking to squeeze suppliers is also a feature and ultimately it's the passenger that 'experiences' the net result.

Avada

billie1b wrote: »

Ryanair are paying Swissport around £12.00ph per staff member, Swissport in return are paying their staff around £9.00ph, the rest is profit for the company. They're supposed to have a certain number of employees to handle Ryanair a/c, a certain amount for Easyjet etc but they can't get/keep the staff, they're being over worked and underpaid with no real benefits. Same can be said for the agency in Dublin, Ryanair pay €15ph per staff member and the agency in return pay the staff €10.79 but it's a revolving door as they're over worked and underpaid with **** benefits and no thanks.

The rest isn't profit though, there are other costs related to running a business aside from the amount that ends up in an employees paycheck.

L1011

billie1b wrote: »

Ryanair are paying Swissport around £12.00ph per staff member, Swissport in return are paying their staff around £9.00ph, the rest is profit for the company. They're supposed to have a certain number of employees to handle Ryanair a/c, a certain amount for Easyjet etc but they can't get/keep the staff, they're being over worked and underpaid with no real benefits. Same can be said for the agency in Dublin, Ryanair pay €15ph per staff member and the agency in return pay the staff €10.79 but it's a revolving door as they're over worked and underpaid with **** benefits and no thanks.

Employer NI on a normal weekly hours basis for that income is about 1.24 for each 9.00 hour. There are costs in processing payroll etc. Its not 3.00 an hour profit.

markpb

I flew from LCY to Dublin with Cityjet recently. The screens showed that my flight was boarding so I wandered off to the gate. When I got there, I could see a BA plane sitting boarding passengers. Most of my fellow passengers failed to notice and queued up in the middle of the BA queue causing even more delays as they rejected each of the Cityjet passengers one by one instead of making an announcement.

A BA staff member was sitting beside me on his phone having a heated debate with someone, pointing out that his flight was waiting for someone to arrive, they wouldn't be vacating the gate on time and that my CJet plane was already sitting on the apron with nowhere to deplane. Still no announcement from CJet staff so passengers kept going to the gate and being rejected by BA staff.

Eventually the guy on the phone beside me stood up, explained the situation to us, apologised for the lack of communication from our company and told us that they'd be on their way soon so we could get on ours.

Eventually we started boarding over half an hour late and without any explanation or apology from CJet staff.

Locker10a

markpb wrote: »

I flew from LCY to Dublin with Cityjet recently. The screens showed that my flight was boarding so I wandered off to the gate. When I got there, I could see a BA plane sitting boarding passengers. Most of my fellow passengers failed to notice and queued up in the middle of the BA queue causing even more delays as they rejected each of the Cityjet passengers one by one instead of making an announcement.

A BA staff member was sitting beside me on his phone having a heated debate with someone, pointing out that his flight was waiting for someone to arrive, they wouldn't be vacating the gate on time and that my CJet plane was already sitting on the apron with nowhere to deplane. Still no announcement from CJet staff so passengers kept going to the gate and being rejected by BA staff.

Eventually the guy on the phone beside me stood up, explained the situation to us, apologised for the lack of communication from our company and told us that they'd be on their way soon so we could get on ours.

Eventually we started boarding over half an hour late and without any explanation or apology from CJet staff.

Except again they aren't Cityjet staff they are agency staff and the operation of both BA and Cityjet is outsourced in Dublin.

Avada

Locker10a wrote: »

Except again they aren't Cityjet staff they are agency staff and the operation of both BA and Cityjet is outsourced in Dublin.

This happened in LCY, although I think they're both Swissport there as well.

L1011

I would have thought Cityjet use Sky at LCY, as Sky operate at LCY and used to be part of Cityjet. Though that doesn't guarantee anything.

Avada

L1011 wrote: »

I would have thought Cityjet use Sky at LCY, as Sky operate at LCY and used to be part of Cityjet. Though that doesn't guarantee anything.

You are indeed correct, just checked LCY airport website and it seems Sky look after Cityjet

TheFitz13

Avada wrote: »

You are indeed correct, just checked LCY airport website and it seems Sky look after Cityjet

Sky look after cityjet in DUB too, although I have noticed cityjet have their own stairs and equipment around too.

Locker10a

TheFitz13 wrote: »

Avada wrote: »

You are indeed correct, just checked LCY airport website and it seems Sky look after Cityjet

Sky look after cityjet in DUB too, although I have noticed cityjet have their own stairs and equipment around too.

Many airlines have their own equipment etc often cases handling agents will have steps etc with the brand of their clients on the side etc which they dedicate to their use.

Irish Steve

Locker10a wrote: »

Many airlines have their own equipment etc often cases handling agents will have steps etc with the brand of their clients on the side etc which they dedicate to their use.

Same can apply to specialist equipment like Ground Power units, a long time ago now, Flybe had their own units at Dublin that had to be used for their aircraft, due to needing a current limiter to prevent damage to starter motors. If the wrong unit was used, there was a serious risk of burning out the starter motor, or worse, the supply cables, which could cause all manner of problems.