OMAguy

i must agree with you on this one. you must have control at your ramp - and these small incidents over and over are going to hurt AS in the long run.

there was an article in the Chicago Tribune a few days ago about UA and this exact problem. UA chose to outsource the refueling aspect of their ramp operations at ORD (their largest hub). the article talked about the horrendous nightmare caused for travelers because so many outsourced workers did not show up to work during the recent cold snap.

no big surprise, but both UA and the company that handles the refueling blamed it on other factors (the bitter cold), but employees said up to two-thirds of the contract workers did not show up to work. an aviation expert discussed how you cant have this type of meltdown at your hub.

the full article can be found here. AS may be saving money in the short-term, but even i question the long-term wisdom of this ramp outsource move that is constantly producing more and more problems.

eastwest

An earlier poster mentioned the extensive list of items that airlines won't accept responsibility for as checked luggage. I am sure that risk of theft is one component to their thinking, I am also sure that there is a second...

Checked baggage tumbles down conveyor belts, through x-ray and explosive detection machines, gets loaded into carts, unloaded from those carts, and stacked into a cargo hold. Unfortunately, sometimes "stacked" can mean "shoved" and sometimes bags fall off those belts or tumble to the ground as they spill out of carts.

We try to avoid this kind of thing but it does happen. You'd think that people would realize that "wrapping" your laptop in a couple of tshirts before stuffing it into their checked bag would not suffice...but it still happens.

Any airline can't (and shouldn't) be responsible for such judgment...

This is just my opinion based on observation/experience on the ramp. I'm not saying that customers are always bad or wrong or that the airline is never responsible...FWIW, I have seen supervisors writing out checks for several hundred dollars on the spot...in baggage claim...to make errors right.

deelmakur

What does a list of permissable items have to do with people who apparently have security clearance to work the ramp, coming to work, with the intention orf using that to steal? And, by the way, doing it, while upstairs, the victims are literally being undressed, presumably because they are a potential threat to security. It's Newton's Law in reverse...apples falling up.

N830MH

Yeah, first IAH and now SEA. Yikes! It was petty theft from the passengers' bags when they are outbound flights from SEA. He would spent within years in the jail forever or the company could be fired them job immediately. I don't like it the baggage handlers was caught the police was busted to took the bags the personal items with laptops, DVD, and lot of those stuffs is taken from bags. It is their responsibility own worker at SEA. It does not too well with AS.

brarrr

HUH?

sxf24

Huh?

I think you've created some hyperbole in your mind. There are bad employees everywhere, even where you least expect: the airport ramp, your bank, your child's school and the police department. While there are rules and policies in place to protect customers, they are fallible. Bottom line: crap happens, we learn a lesson, make the necessary changes and move on.

westcoastman

Move on? I know that there are still more out there doing this at SEA. Those that were caught did not get caught by the airport/airline. And it is not just at the airports. Stores are having their inventory cleaned out by employees but that does not have a direct impact on customers like this does. The ethics of many youth is quite twisted today and Ebay is assisting in all this.

sxf24

There will always be a few isolated employees like this, even if AS got rid of Menizies and paid their ramp workers more. If you can't move on, you're going to give yourself an ulcer or a heart attack from all the worry about the evil youth of today.

deelmakur

Let me give you some hyperbole. Let's forget the outsourced ramp, whiich has removed a layer of company control. which further appears to have, in a ripple effect, gutted the company's performance, on time, and otherwise. Instead let's focus on people who are so dumb they (a) don't know they could kill people by not reporting damage to a 700 mile an hour conveyance, that flies 5 miles above the earth, and (b) are so clueless they haven't figured out their workplace is, since 9/11, the most scrtuinized platform in the history of modern surveillance, with cameras, an entire agency created just to do it (TSA), etc., that they decide it's a perfect place to open people's property, and steal from it. They are going to cause a catastrophe at some point. I just hope the previous poster (or any of us, for that matter) isn't onboard when that "hyperbole" catches up with them.

sxf24

A completely different issue than stealing out of luggage and incredibly more significant.

I suggest you add your comments to the existing thread on this topic.

Westcoaster

But the airlines don't make all the necessary changes, do they? When was the last time they increased their liability amount for checked luggage? Decades ago? Have you ever had anything taken from your luggage and found the customer service response to be, shall we say, less than adequate? For those of us who are honest and not trying to rip anyone off it seems like the airlines get away with a lot.

I'm all in favor of a new passenger bill of rights.

sxf24

The problem is theft, not poor compensation for passengers. The airlines need to improve controls to prevent theft and eliminate the need for compensation.

Westcoaster

You must have edited that quickly. I was all ready to say that I was not a "demanding" passenger looking for a "handout" and the response changed. Weird.

Anyway, the airlines don't seem to have enough incentive to prevent theft at this time. Ideally they would take the initiative but it doesn't seem to be happening. Raising the cost of inadequate enforcement might give them an incentive.