NEWS FLASH
The Serbian Minister for Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Goran Vesić, has said the Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate will launch tender procedures for the selection of additional ground handling companies at Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport. Mr Vesić, who has been critical of airport operator VINCI, said the French concessionaire is aware that a number of delays and flight cancellations in Belgrade are being generated due to a lack of airport staff, particularly baggage handlers, which he labelled as unacceptable. For its part, VINCI conceded that it is understaffed in certain departments in Belgrade and that it is in the process of hiring a further 100 employees. It will also increase wages in response to a lack of interest for job vacancies. ”VINCI has an obligation to ensure airport services operate flawlessly and that passengers who paid for their tickets and their airport service get what they deserve. VINCI has only one choice and that is to improve its service and to respect passengers. They will never convince me that in front of passport control they are unable to form lines and to hire security guards who will direct people to the first available counter. That's how they do it in Paris, but they seem to think that they don't have to behave that way in Belgrade. Well, they will have to", Mr Vesić said. The President of VINCI Airports, Nicolas Notebaert, travelled to Belgrade last week to meet with the Minister and address ongoing bottlenecks at the airport.
The majority of Belgrade Airport’s ground handling is performed by the airport itself. Belgrade Airport’s other handling company is the privately-owned SKY Partner, which handles Wizz Air, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Swiss, Eurowings, Norwegian Air Shuttle and airBaltic. In 2017, in a bid to cut costs, Air Serbia halted operations of its Air Serbia Ground Handling Services (ASGS) company, which provided passenger service, supervision, station management, training, freight forwarding and customs clearance at Belgrade Airport. It outsourced these duties to Belgrade Airport instead. Up until now, the Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate has limited the number of ground handling companies at Belgrade Airport to three, of which one is the airport itself. The other two are SKY Partner and Air Serbia Ground Handling Services, although, as mentioned, the latter has outsourced its handling to Belgrade Airport.
Good decision. It has been a disaster lately
ReplyDeleteDisaster continues on daily basis it is just not making the news every day.
DeleteIt's making the news only if it's Air Serbia delays. Media does not report when Wizz and others have massive delays like Wizz last night delayed 6 hours 58 minutes:
DeleteLondon Luton W9 4001 20:50 Wizz Air A10 Одлетео 03:48
Especially nobody informs about FR delays in ZAG.
DeleteThey had a lot of huge delays in last 10 days and the worst one was Brussels with 13 hours delay!
Exactly what government supposed to do.
DeleteThe Brussels delay in Zagreb of 13 hours was because the crew flew to Brussels with a 3 hour delay, reached their maximum crew time, and then had to fly back to Zagreb the next day.
DeleteHow much they pay their baggage handlers? What is the salary?
DeleteWas flying to Skopje last Friday. The ATR72 that was operating our flight arrived from its previous flight from Tivat ahead of schedule. Plane had a turnaround time of over an hour. Everyone was on the plane on time, we were ready to go and then we were delayed by a full hour. Pilot told us there was no one to load our luggage which is why were were delayed.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't suprise me. on BEG airport there are many delays. Today the flight to SKP departed 2,5 hours late and today departed 1,5 hours late. IST,ATH,OTP and TIA were also delayed with more than an hour. There were also an amount of flights delayed 30-45 minutes but from my experience pilots can still arrive on time with 30-40 min delayed on their destanation.
DeleteI think that JU has their priority destanations where they cannot afford any delay. Which are CDG,LHW,JFK,FRA and AMS. They are almost always on time. They probably pressure airlines to come on time.
@14:58 almost none of these flight destinations you mentioned is on time. Check morning departures and evening departures to those cities and you will see that JU aircraft almost never leave Belgrade as per schedule. Rather + 60 minutes is ok to say. If JAT was called "joke about time" then Air Serbia should be called even worst.
DeleteDid you even read the text before making an incorrect assumption? Airport being understaffed is the cause, not Air Serbia.
DeleteSo "haters" are proven again right when they were saying that closing down ASGS was a big mistake.
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia made a profit, but the damage to service and to experience of passengers is too much.
Deletethey need to bring back ASGS or force VINCI to be better.
This is what Air Serbia was talking about a few days ago, but everyone was so quick to judge them and say that they were looking for excuses...
ReplyDeleteJU weren't exactly fully innocent either. The mess we have seen lately I think is a combination of the airport being understaffed, Tehnika understaffed and under supplied and JU not being adequately organised.
Delete@Anonymous 15:25
DeleteAll true, but again JU can't really function at 100% if airport is a mess
Of course nobody is innocent and everyone wants to make a buck. That’s why you need government to do their jobs and fines these companies for cutting the corners . Easy fixable.
DeleteTime needed to launch the tender, receive responses, make a decision, for a winning company to hire employees, get them trained, setup operations at the airport and start working... it will be months.
ReplyDeleteAnother ground handler could help in the long run but don't see how it will fix immediate problem and save this summer.
Unless it was the plan of VINCI and the French all along, as it has been suspected for years now, that they want to get rid of groundnhandling and to drop thst business all together from the airports portfolio. French have proven to be really adaptable to a Serbian way of doing business - scheming, cutting corners, underpaying workers, harrasing and threatening,...
DeleteFinally...
ReplyDeleteTwo times this year I have experienced unpleasent surprise on passport control. When minister says to the public: "They will never convince me that in front of passport control they are unable to form lines and.", then it is too much.
The comment from Vesic about hiring a queue administrator is hilarious ...what is needed is to have all passport boots open and staffed; not only 4 as is usually the case. I presume all can see a free booth and go to it without the help of a queue manager! )))
ReplyDeleteIt is not hilarious at all. It is true. They didn't deploy long enough "snake", and Balkan rules were aplied = chaos.
DeleteThe more booths, more of a need for a person directing. People usually lost sadly.
DeleteIt will only get worse .
ReplyDeletePrepare for the day the whole airport breaks down with all flights cancelled .
I was flying today with LX1416, 170/176 pax, the captain was very happy with the Sky Partner ground handler telling him: thanks a lot for the fast service.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise there wasnt any long queues at the scanners and passport control. I was very surprised that the new drop off point was empty
*LX1417 Swiss BEG-ZRH, my mistake
DeleteIt's long overdue that a professionally run and managed international ground handling company like Swissport/Menzies or even someone with a good presence in the region (eg Goldair) set up operation here and break up this corrupt clown show between ASGS / Belgrade Airport. Airports all around Europe have been getting out of the ground handling business for decades now....
ReplyDeleteWe just waited now 30 min ready to go in an ATR for the push back ground handling service ...
ReplyDeleteATR do not require push back!
DeleteToday Air Serbia has cancelled flights JU370/1 ZRH, JU188/9 TIV and JU394/5 HAM.
ReplyDeleteMonday to LHR was fine
ReplyDeleteDep on time.Arr on time
All luggage arrived.A319 100 I think. Seemed to be new Air Serbia plane. Air Serbia crew. Female pilot. 3 unaccompanied minors well looked after. New scanners at airport mean no need to get electrical equipment out or take off your watch shoes etc and no need to frisk.
Lots of staff.recriving training at airport
They already made tender less than 2 years ago which failed. Vinci tipped for their GHA services with Far East low cost workers but they did not passed.
ReplyDelete