That time of the month….:dev2:

Well your right in some respects Josh, as we all know how stressful this time of the month can be, however, the actual cause of the problem is that airlines are cutting services left, right and centre in order to cut their costs and save themselves money.

Whilst thats fine for them, it creates a big problem for the ground handling companies who at the end of the day still need to have enough staff to carry out their operations, and they still need to be able to pay their staff for the jobs they do. With decreased revenues coming in from airlines its a very challenging time for all concerned.

At my particular workplace, we have just merged with another ground handling company, which in itself has created lots of issues which are taking a long time to be resolved, and so the Unions are doing a lot of work for us by protecting and representing us, to avoid us from being trampled on by the management.

Its not that we are resistant to change, but when you get so used to doing things in a particular way, and then you get told that the process is changing at short notice, naturally there is going to be a conflict between the two parties involved and when management refuse to budge or at least come to a sensible agreement, going on strike is seen as the only way forward to get our feelings across. We certainly do not do it to simply cause disruption to the travelling public…its just an unfortunate consequence that they get stuck in the middle of all of this.

And with respect to my actual job, I am aware that the airline I currently represent are activley looking to move to a different terminal at some point in the future, which will mean that our company will more than likely loose the contract to handle them. There is a lot of rumours and hearsay that it could on the cards quite soon into 2010, and with the job situation as it is at the moment, there is a lot of uncertainty at the moment about how safe our jobs are…

Jono, Andy wasn’t aiming the “insult” at the staff, you. I believe he was aiming it at the Union. They did not get their way with the BA strike therefore they choose to get the ground crew on strike, which in the end will cause just as much disruption.

Pop out the chill pills brother….

Yeah, thanks Josh, sorry for being rude to you on MSN y’day, it was just the fact that I had come home from a long and frustrating day at work having to deal with loads of issues, ranging from oversold flights to small problems such as families upset that they are not seated together. To come home and log-in and read a comment like Andy’s just made me loose my temper a bit.;)