- Manchester Airport bosses are alleged to have asked firefighters to work on the baggage belts, due to a workforce shortage.
- Manchester Airport bosses have described as an ‘extremely challenging’ labour market.
Concerns are afoot of more disruption and queues for passengers in the busy summer months, with flights to and from Manchester Airport to Alicante-Elche airport.
It is understood firefighters refused to take on the baggage duties – with staff from other departments helping.
The shortage comes on the back of Covid, with over 2,000 redundancies at Manchester Airport.
Approximately 700 people employed directly by the hub, including many in management positions, and over 1,500 by outside employers such as baggage handling agents and airlines, were made redundant.
With travel restrictions easing, passenger numbers are rising, and plans to re-open Terminal 3 are scheduled.
Firefighters
One Manchester Airport’s Group (MAG) staff member who wished to remain anonymous, has been reported as saying: “It’s been so bad that they have been asking firefighters, engineers and parking staff to offload the bags onto the conveyors in the Arrivals hall.
“I think the summer is going to be horrendous, at this rate we just won’t have the staff, and morale is already low.
“I just hope that we get the staff we need in time and get back to normal.”
Staffing shortages, with bosses struggling to fill the vacancies left by the mass exodus, is understood to have hit departments, including Security and agencies which handle passengers’ baggage.
It is alleged holidaymakers were forced to leave the hub, without their luggage, which could escalate during the summer.
On March 7, passengers claimed to have waited in three-hour queues at security. Manchester Airport said this was due to a ‘greater number of passengers than expected’.
Manchester Airport said that in recent months, there have been a small number of instances when they, and other organisations, have asked other teams to support the baggage operation for a short period of time.
The airport are working to ensure all third parties had the support and resource they needed – as the aviation industry continues to recover amid Covid-19.
From November 2021 to February 2022, more than 940,000 passengers travelled through the hub, compared to 198,000 in 2020, at the height of the pandemic hit.
During the same period in 2019, there were more than 2.7m passengers, but staff say numbers are now rising.
A jobs fair in February had 500-plus jobs on offer, including passenger security, customer services, car parks and hospitality, and working for ground handlers and contractors including Jet2com, Swissport and baggage handlers.
Baggage handling
There were also vacancies at UK Border Force, which controls immigration.
One job fair attendee said: “They were saying there are thousands of jobs and that they just couldn’t recruit the baggage handlers they need.
“They said passengers were having to be sent their bags by courier, which must be costing a fortune. I think a lot of staff who went on furlough during Covid-19 didn’t come back.”
