Leaked safety reports expose shocking incidents at Australian airports

Leaked internal documents from a company used by Qantas to outsource baggage handling jobs have exposed shocking safety incidents.

Leaked internal documents from one of the companies used by Qantas to outsource baggage handling jobs have exposed shocking safety breaches at Australian airports in the past six months.

The incidents at Swissport have included guns being left on arrivals carousels, dangerous goods being taken onto planes undocumented, aircraft being damaged and staff working while injured.

As the beleaguered local aviation industry struggles to return to its pre-pandemic capacity, Swissport has acknowledged to staff on more than one occasion it doesn’t have enough workers to sustainably meet the ongoing demand from airlines.

Swissport provides ground handling services for multiple international and Australian airlines, including Qantas.

A Swissport memo to staff regarding Qantas, sent in late April, said there had been “an increase of incidents where firearms have been incorrectly offloaded onto the arrival’s carousel, rather than delivered to baggage services”.

“These are serious security breaches, since these items are left unattended on the arrival’s carousel, which is open to the general public, effectively allowing anyone to pick the item up and walk away,” the memo said.

Qantas has accused the Transport Workers’ Union of being hypocritical. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

A Swissport worker who provides services for Qantas domestic flights, who asked not to be identified because of the company’s strict media policy, said the workplace was struggling with a very high turnover rate and a dearth of experienced staff.

“The reason we’re understaffed is it’s a very hard job, but also people don’t feel valued; the pay’s very low and there’s generally a very bad safety culture,” they said.

“We’re sent a memo when incidents do occur; all they really say is don’t do this again. “There’s very little accountability, very little enforcement of safety rules.”

The worker, who is paid about $23 an hour, said they and their colleagues were being asked to meet unrealistic deadlines by managers who were “under a lot of pressure” to meet their own deadlines from Qantas.

“A good example is regarding what’s called ramp teams; so when we go out and service the standard Boeing 737 planes that Qantas use, you’d usually have a team of four people to do all the tasks associated with that,” they said.

“But often there’s teams of only three people … and in some cases there’s even two people or one person assigned to a whole plane.”

In one Swissport safety incident, a worker’s finger was crushed because they weren’t wearing personal protective equipment.

In another, a worker injured their back while trying to tow a container used to load luggage that weighed more than 500kg.

The Transport Workers’ Union has written to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, asking them to investigate the safety incidents at Swissport and the labour “supply chains” used by Qantas.

Guns have been left on arrivals carousels at the Qantas terminal. Picture: Gaye Gerard

“The community should be rightly alarmed as we are of the revelations,” TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said.

TWU representative and sacked Qantas baggage handler Don Dixon said he was particularly concerned by the revelations that dangerous goods were being taken onto planes without being properly documented.

“It is critical that dangerous goods are put in the correct place on an aircraft that the manifest has been recorded to the captain … The training that we did was intense,” he told reporters at Sydney airport on Tuesday.

“Dangerous goods can have catastrophic effects to the aircraft flying and ultimately could bring an aircraft down.”

Mr Dixon said he didn’t “blame the workers in these outsourced companies”.

“It’s not their fault. They’ve had minimal training. They’ve had virtually no one with experience alongside them,” he said.

Qantas has suffered a shortage of baggage handlers since its 2020 decision to outsource about 1700 jobs to third-party companies including Swissport.

That decision was found to be unlawful and in part motivated by the fact many of the national carrier’s own baggage handlers were union members with stronger bargaining capability.

Qantas is attempting to challenge that finding in the High Court.

The ground handlers used by Qantas are understood to have increased their workforce by 25 per cent since Easter, while the rate of misplaced bags has decreased from 12 per 1000 in April to 6 per 1000 in August.

TWU national secretary Michael Kaine has asked the airport safety regulators to investigate the incidents. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

A Qantas spokesman said data showed specialist ground handlers had a lower rate of incidents compared to when the work was done in-house.

“Only since the outsourcing (is the TWU) commenting publicly on these incidents and the travelling public deserves to be cynical about that,” he said.

“This kind of behaviour is hypocritical and undermines the strong safety culture that exists throughout Australian aviation.”

A spokeswoman for Swissport said it encouraged the reporting of all possible safety issues, “regardless of whether those concerns ultimately prove to have no foundation”.

“That is indicative of a high performing organisation, with a real commitment to safety,” she said.

She said Australian aviation ground handlers had experienced “unprecedented staff turnover” since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

She said this was partly a result of the former Australian government’s decision to “exclude them” from the same support offered to airlines and airports.

The spokeswoman said Swissport was making “enormous efforts” to recruit and retain new staff, including engaging specialist recruitment firms, taking part in jobs fairs, and appealing to university students.