Passengers at Gatwick have been advised to pack essential items in their hand luggage this weekend amid fears of further chaos caused by a shortage of baggage handlers.
Travellers flying into the airport should carry refreshments in preparation for potential delays on arrival, while those leaving the country ought to consider taking any must-have items into the cabin, travel agents said.
It came as Thomas Cook became the second airline to indicate it could end its contract with Swissport, the baggage handling firm at the centre of severe delays at the airport last weekend.
On Thursday day dozens of extra staff were called in by Swissport and Gatwick Airport, as it emerged that the baggage handling firm made 60 supervisors and assistant supervisors redundant just three months ago.
A shortage of staff at Swissport, which is understood to be using employees on zero-hour contracts who do not wish to work anti-social hours, has been widely blamed for the severe problems at Gatwick during the peak of the summer getaway last week.
Passengers arriving at the airport waited up to four hours to claim their belongings amid a critical shortage of staff to deliver bags to carousels, while some of those who departed on holiday were still without their luggage five days later.
Baggage was delayed on 16 per cent of flights over the weekend, Gatwick said. If delays continue at the same rate, some 281 flights would stand to be affected between Friday and Monday. Swissport and Gatwick said they did not anticipate the problem to recur, however.
ABTA, the travel association, told passengers to ensure they carried food and other essentials in their hand luggage in case of delays, and to keep in contact with any companies such as taxi firms they have booked onward travel through.
“In this situation, if you are travelling with your family, make sure you have got refreshments and extra kit [such as] something to entertain the children,” a spokesman said.
People departing Gatwick could also consider packing a change of clothes in case their bag goes missing. “They shouldn’t have to do that really, but given what we saw weekend there certainly would be no harm.”
Airlines were coming under increasing pressure last night to sever their ties with the beleaguered firm, which has contracts with 27 airlines at Gatwick including British Airways, Virgin, Monarch, Thomas Cook and Thompson.
Monarch is understood to have told the Zurich-based firm that it will terminate its contract after an obligatory 120-day notice period, while Thomas Cook is believed to be in 11th hour talks with Swissport amid strong indications they will terminate the relationship.
Harriet Green, Thomas Cook's chief executive, told the Telegraph her firm had begun reviewing Swissport’s performance more than two months ago and has been having “emergency meetings” for some weeks.
Speaking as Thomas Cook unveiled a £33m rise in third quarter profits, she said: “We have clear contingencies with Swissport and others as we go forward. Customers have not received the service that they should expect.”
A spokesman for Vietnam Airlines, another client at Gatwick, said it would “continue to monitor developments in order to protect our passengers’ interests”, adding that “our current contract with Swissport is due to expire in November”.
Jim Dobbin MP, a Labour member of the transport select committee, said airlines should look at severing ties with the firm. “We can’t have these kinds of delays at this time of year, it’s just not acceptable”, he said.
Mary Creagh, shadow transport secretary, added: “Airlines have a duty to ensure that passengers’ luggage arrives when they do. Swissport has clearly failed to deliver this.”
Rob Wilkes said the start of his honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico had been ruined after baggage handlers failed to load his bag onto the plane, meaning he was without it for 48 hours.
Carrie-Ann Pitt, a sales manager for a publishing firm, was left without her belongings including her work mobile phone for two days after landing at Gatwick on Sunday morning.
"The baggage hall was chaos,” she said. “People were carrying around babies that needed to be asleep because their pushchairs were on the plane.”
Passengers have been warned that the delays could last several months because airlines are locked into contracts with Swissport, although the problem is not believed to be affecting other airports.
Ian McCoulough, Unite's regional officer responsible for Gatwick, said the fiasco was caused by Swissport taking contracts from budget airlines at low prices which were "unsustainable" today.
As a result, 60 staff redundant at Gatwick around three months ago, he said. All were supervisors and assistant supervisors.
"These were people who allocated jobs to people and told them to be in the right place at the right time,” he said. "They imagined that they could do the job with less people and unsurprisingly they can't … I can't see it being resolved any time soon."
Swissport apologised for the delays but said the situation had been caused by a high level of “off-schedule” flights between late Saturday evening and Sunday morning. It declined to comment on employment issues.
A Gatwick spokesman said Swissport had failed to deliver bags on time and its performance was “not good enough”, but added that it was working with the company to improve service.
