Speaking to The Malta Independent, spokesmen for the various airlines said the situation at the airport on Tuesdays is always hectic. However, they added, the situation last Tuesday was “extraordinarily chaotic”.

One spokesman attributed the problem to a measure, taken as part of Air Malta’s restructuring exercise, which included the reduction of the baggage handling crew from seven to six employees. This meant that it took longer for aircraft to be loaded and unloaded, with the result that backlogs ensued.

An aircraft owned by one particular airline was delayed by 40 minutes because no

baggage handlers were available to load the luggage on the aeroplane for it to be able to leave Malta on time.

Passengers who had just arrived in Malta on another airline had to wait for just over half an hour to be able to retrieve their baggage.

Notwithstanding these complaints, the spokesmen of the airlines who The Malta Independent contacted yesterday said that even though the situation on Tuesdays was chaotic, the service being provided to these airlines was satisfactory on other days when it is not so busy.

A spokesman for Emirates said the situation on Tuesday was chaotic and passengers on an incoming flight had to wait for over 30 minutes to retrieve their luggage from the conveyor belt. The spokesman said problems began when it took the high-loader 10 minutes to arrive near the aircraft to begin unloading the luggage.

The steps that enable passengers to disembark and the buses to transport them to the airport arrived almost immediately but the high-loader took its time because it was being used for another aircraft. As a result of this delay, passengers had to wait for 30 minutes to retrieve their luggage.

A spokesman for British Airways also described the situation at the airport on Tuesday as chaotic and “disastrous”. He said that on certain days the handling of aircraft is stretched to the limit.

Asked whether it could be because of the one-man reduction from every shift, the spokesman replied in the affirmative.

The spokesman said that apart from the reduction in the crew, the ground handling staff had some members missing last Tuesday and the workers could not cope with the demand. This is what led to the chaos. He said the loading team arrived near his company’s aircraft 40 minutes after the passengers had boarded the plane.

Francesco Zammarelli, the station manager for Alitalia’s office in Malta explained that Tuesday’s chaotic situation was only “an isolated case”. While admitting that it was true there was a problem with loading and unloading, he said it was not something that happened regularly.

Asked whether Alitalia aircraft were affected as a result of this situation, Mr Zammarelli said the incoming passengers had to wait for 30 minutes to be able to retrieve their baggage while a flight leaving Malta was delayed by 25 minutes because of the time it took to load the luggage onto the aircraft.

Replying to a question on whether he thought that ground handling staff were enough, he said Alitalia planes are easy to handle and so they did not create any problems for airport staff.

Mr Zammarelli said it was true that Sundays and Tuesdays are the busiest days at the airport but the staff at the airport manage to deliver the service they are paid for, he said.

A spokesman for yet another airline operating from Malta said the situation at the airport was “unbelievable”. The spokesman said the check-in process practically came to a halt because there were no people, or not enough people, to carry out the job. He said that if the process of loading the baggage onto a trolley to take to the aircraft slowed down, then the whole process would slow down.

On Saturday, the spokesman explained, check-in to a flight was closed half-an-hour after the flight was scheduled to leave. All this happened because the conveyor belt at the check-in department was full of luggage.

The spokesman also complained about the lack of adequate equipment and that the equipment being used is not serviced on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, sources close to airport staff confirmed the airlines’ woes. They went so far as to describe the situation as “pathetic” (tal-biki) adding that working there became really stressful because while every worker is doing his utmost, more and more is expected from them.

One employee who spoke to The Malta Independent on condition of anonymity said, “There are a number of loaders who are refusing overtime. Unfortunately, measures have been taken as part of Air Malta’s restructuring process, but these were taken in departments where most people are needed. The worst thing is that when they complain, the airlines get a plain and simple “we regret the inconvenience”.

He continued that on Tuesday an aircraft had to wait for 10 minutes with its engines turned on before a worker, known as a marshaller, assisted the pilot to park his aircraft. The same aircraft then had to wait another 10 minutes before it was provided with a flight of stairs for the passengers to disembark from the aircraft.

The employee said it costs every aircraft Lm290 to use the high-loader to unload the luggage from the plane.

Asked whether he could describe the situation on Tuesdays and Sundays, the employee said it was very simple, “Imagine 15 flights from Britain arriving in Malta for the passengers to take a cruise leaving from here. Imagine 1,500 arriving and another 1,500 who came back to Malta from their cruise at the airport waiting to board the same planes. Doesn’t it sound chaotic as it is? Now imagine handing all that luggage... I will leave it up to you and your readers to draw conclusions.”

The worker said the loaders sometimes go out of their way to load the aircraft, at times risking injury to themselves so all the blame cannot be shifted on them.

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